Discussion
cardiovascular disease, inflammation, asthma, typically impaired, airway inflammation
INFLAMMATORY RESPONSES, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE, INFLAMMATION, ASTHMA, ARTERIAL STIFFNESS
We investigated the link between asthma and cardiovascular disease risk in a controlled laboratory environment by assessing the impact of the mannitol and methacholine airway challenges on systemic inflammation and vascular function in young people with confirmed asthma and in controls. Despite sufficiently reducing FEVVascular markers of cardiovascular disease risk are typically impaired in asthma compared to controls [To normalize lung function after each challenge, and to minimize any discomfort from bronchoconstriction, each participant received 400°g salbutamol following each challenge irrespective of individual level of airway response. While salbutamol does not appear to have anti-inflammatory properties, salbutamol increases sympathetic activity [The risk of developing cardiovascular disease increases with age [A limitation of this study was the lack of confirmation of the pulmonary inflammatory responses to mannitol. While the EBC analysis did not yield detectable airway inflammation, other techniques such as induced sputum or bronchoscopy sampling would have likely confounded the vascular assessments. The mannitol inhalation challenge has previously been shown to increase markers of mast cell activation [In the current study, all follow-up measurements were done within the first hour following each challenge. Further assessments to evaluate changes over time were not feasible as the participants would have had to remain fasting and sedentary. Previous studies evaluating the effect of increased systemic inflammation on vascular function and arterial stiffness both observed detectable changes in inflammatory levels eight hours after the inflammatory insult [