Article 68836 of sci.med:
Path: bigblue.oit.unc.edu!concert!gatech!mailer.acns.fsu.edu!pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu!user
From: pepke@scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Allergies, Asthma, and Fitness
Followup-To: sci.med
Date: 17 May 1994 15:37:26 GMT
Organization: Florida State University, but I don't speak for them
Lines: 26
Distribution: world
Message-ID: 
NNTP-Posting-Host: pepkemac.scri.fsu.edu

I have a question about how general fitness affects allergies and asthma. 
It's based on a curious experience of mine.  I used to suffer quite badly
from allergies and somewhat from asthma.  I was never hospitalized for an
asthma attack, but I once came reasonably close to anaphylactic shock from
being at a party where a cat was in the other room.  I used to have to
inhale quite a lot of albuterol every day just to get around.

For quite independent reasons, I altered a number of things about my body. 
I switched to a low-fat, limited-calorie diet.  I drastically increased the
amount of exercise I was getting.  I went from a fatty 250+ pounds to a
muscular 200 pounds.

The curious thing is that symptoms of both my asthma and my allergies have
almost completely gone away.  The improvement has been quite dramatic and
totally unexpected.  I am certain that it was causal.

My question is, what are possible mechanisms for that causal relationship? 
The asthma I can imagine, as it is easier for even impaired lungs to get
oxygen for a smaller body, and the lack of a gut makes breathing work
better from a mechanical perspective.  However, I am stumped about the
allergies.

Eric Pepke
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University
pepke@scri.fsu.edu

Disclaimer: The file contained in the box above or displayed in a separate window from a link in the box above is NOT owned nor implied to be owned by BeYoND THe iLLuSioN. Most files at BeYoND THe iLLuSioN are originally from public Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were popular in the days before the Internet or from gopher, web, and FTP sites from the early days of the Internet which no longer exist today. Essentially, all files were acquired from the public domain in one for or another.

However, there have been occasions when copyright protected material has appeared on BeYoND THe iLLuSIoN without permission of the copyright holder. In these instances, we have and will continue to remove the copyright protected file as soon as it is brought to our attention. This can now be done using our Report Copyright Material form. Fill out the form, and the webmaster will be notified of the situation.

There are also times when files found on BeYoND THe iLLuSioN have a real home somewhere else on the Internet. In these instances, we will gladly replace the file with a link to its true home whenever it is brought to our attention. If you know of the true home of any of these files, you can use our Report Original URL form to bring it yo our attention.