World Asthma Day, Tuesday May 2, is an opportunity to raise public awareness of this pathology, from which nearly four million people in France suffer, and which is not incompatible with high-level sport.
Footballer David Beckham, athlete Sebastian Coe, swimmer Alain Bernard… There is no shortage of examples of top athletes who have achieved a great career despite their asthma. Physical effort is even recommended by pulmonologists, and has no high-level contraindications. In France, 3.5 to 4 million people are asthmatic and 900 to 1000 people die of it each year. On this World Asthma Day, May 2, the Gregory Pariente Foundation, which is mobilizing to reduce the consequences of asthma, recalls that sports practice helps to better support the respiratory disease.
“Asthma is a disease linked to two main mechanisms: an inflammation of the airways, which secretes mucus and clogs them, and a reduction in the diameter of the airways, which makes the airflow less important”, asks pulmonologist Louis-Jean Couderc. According to the specialist, sport is absolutely not contraindicated in asthmatics: “Quite the contrary! And there is no danger in practicing it at a high level either.. Rowing endurance world record holder on an ergometer, and asthmatic from birth, Thomas Busser can attest to this: “Sport allowed me to space out the seizures, which were common in the early years, and it allowed me to understand how my body worked. Asthma is not a blemish”. Physical activity, between 18 and 20 hours a week during his high-level career, has thus become an integral part of his asthma management. “I have seen a decrease in symptoms and a decrease in the occurrence of seizures,” he adds.
Promote environments without harmful particles
If the sport is strongly recommended, its practice must nevertheless take into account the environment, to breathe as few harmful particles as possible, and the weather conditions, so as not to put the bronchi too much in difficulty. “In summer, you shouldn’t train at midday in the middle of the sun, because dry air is an aggravating factor. And conversely, in winter, you shouldn’t jog in the evening when the temperatures drop “, explains Professor Couderc. To realize his world endurance record, with 110 hours of effort in a row in the relay with Romaric CavardThomas Busser had therefore put all the chances on his side: “We had to choose the right time, in winter, in a slightly cool environment, without pollen or grasses, in a room free of dust and mites, with natural ventilation”he describes.
Double Olympic swimming champion in 2008 and 2012, Alain Bernard paid the price for environments that were not always suited to his asthma, diagnosed as a teenager. “Symptoms showed up especially during training, if the exercises were intensive, sometimes in old swimming pools that were not very well ventilated. I was more sensitive to it than my colleagues, and it was a little infuriating. I wondered why I had asthma, and they didn’t.”, he says, convinced that the overexposure to chlorine is also at the origin of the manifestations of his asthma. “When chlorine degrades in water, it releases a gas, trichloramide, which stagnates ten centimeters from the surface, and we swimmers, that’s where we breathe for two hours”, he assures. Over time, the champion learned to control this respiratory discomfort by preferring outdoor pools for his twenty hours of weekly training: “There are a few more difficult months in winter, but it was still more pleasant for me”.
A treatment still taboo?
More medically monitored, high-level athletes with asthma require authorizations for use for therapeutic purposes (TUE) to follow certain treatments, in particular for bronchodilators and corticosteroids, which appear on the list of products prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency ( AMA) for healthy athletes. “If a healthy subject takes an asthma product, it improves their breathing capacity, and we know that some titles are played at a few hundredths of a second, so it can tempt some people to cheat. raises Professor Couderc.
Alain Bernard, who never traveled without his Ventolin, passed all the examinations to prove his asthma and his need for TUE, renewed every year. “It took me a little acceptance time to take an unauthorized drug, he confides. I had all the supporting documents for this, and I needed them. So I had to do inhalations every day and take Ventolin before exercise when I felt that I was limited”. The swimmer claims to have always respected the doses prescribed by his doctor, but he remained discreet for a long time about his asthma, before revealing it in 2008. “I didn’t hide it, I didn’t overexpose it, I did my thing discreetly, because rumors of doping can quickly go away when you are in the media. I strictly respected the dosages but I wanted to remain discreet about it. “, he says.
Thomas Busser also used inhalations before competitions. “It’s a question of dosage between the one who is just going to take three puffs of Ventolin, simply to breathe like the others, and the one who is going to take twenty, he testifies. I have already witnessed this, and the intentions are not the same, that questions me”. Taking salbutamol, a bronchodilator component of ventolin, has already gotten several asthmatic athletes in trouble, for too high concentrations of the product in doping control samples, as for the quadruple winner of the Tour de France, Chris Froome, finally cleared .
