Asthma Control and Asthma Medication Use among Swedish Elite Endurance Athletes

Table 1

Demographic and clinical characteristics of a group of Swedish elite endurance athletes and a health care-based reference population of patients with asthma.

	Athletes	References	value
Age (years), mean (SD)	21.5 (4.5)	25.6 (6.4)	<0.001
Women	79 (56)	181 (66)	0.051
Training (hours/week), mean (SD)	11.7 (4.4)	4.9 (4.5)	<0.001
Current asthma	108 (77)	243 (88)	0.002
Age of asthma onset (years), mean (SD)	13.3 (4.5)	9.8 (6.7)	<0.001
Allergy	54 (50)	203 (74)	<0.001
Family history of asthma	78 (59)	149 (58)	0.866
Health care contacts^1	25 (18)	75 (27)	0.031
Shortness of breath^2	27 (19)	95 (35)	0.001

The data are presented as n (%) unless otherwise stated; significant values are shown in bold; ¹respiratory-related health care contacts in the previous 12 months; ²shortness of breath following strenuous activity in the previous 12 months; SD, standard deviation.