Review Shows Certain Exercises Benefit Patients With Asthma

Yoga and breathing control practices, in combination with aerobic training, may benefit people with asthma seeking to improve their lung function, according to a review published online Aug. 10 in the Annals of Medicine.

Shuangtao Xing, from Henan Normal University in China, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify studies comparing the effects of different types of exercise on pulmonary function in adult patients with asthma.

Based on 28 included studies (2,155 patients with asthma), the researchers found in a network meta-analysis that breathing training (BT), aerobic training (AT), relaxation training (RT), yoga training (YG), and breathing combined with aerobic training (BT + AT) improved forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) levels compared with the control group. Further, AT, BT, YG, and BT + AT improved the level of forced vital capacity (FVC), while BT, AT, RT, YG, and BT + AT improved peak expiratory flow (PEF). FEV1/FVC was improved by BT, AT, and YG. RT had the most significant effect on improving FEV1 (standard mean difference, 1.13), while BT + AT had the most significant effect on improving the FVC (standard mean difference, 0.71) and YG had the most significant effect on improving the PEF (standard mean difference, 0.79).