This application is for a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K32). This award will allow me to achieve my immediate career ,qoal of obtaining a solid foundation of information and training in conducting clinical research. My career development plan includes participation in the Indiana University's Clinical Investigator Training Enhancement program that is supported by a K30 award. I will work closely with my CITE mentor panel as well as my primary mentor, Dr. Homer Twigg. This training award will allow me to move toward fulfilling my !.0n.q-term career, qoal of becoming a successful, independently funded clinical investigator. Poorly controlled asthma significantly worsens quality of life and increases the risk of dying from asthma. The goat of asthma treatment is to allow people with asthma to participate in any activity they choose, i.e. achieve good asthma control. Due to the side effects of current anti-inflammatory medications, recent efforts have focused on finding additional therapies that can be used in combination with these anti-inflammatory drugs to allow a reduction in the dose, and thus the side effects of these medications. Exercise therapy has been proposed as one such therapy. However, it has not been clearly demonstrated that exercise therapy improves asthma control, and the potential for exercise therapy to exert a beneficial effect on the inflammation of asthma has yet to be studied. This proposal is the first step toward a long-range goal of determining the effectiveness of exercise therapy as a primary therapy for asthma. The objective of this proposal is to determine how one program of exercise therapy affects asthma symptoms and inflammatory markers from the lung of asthmatics. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that symptomatic asthmatics treated with exercise therapy will achieve improved asthma control. As asthma control is dependent on the degree of inflammation present, it is additionally hypothesized that exercise therapy will have an anti-inflammatory effect on inflammatory markers present in the lung. We will test this hypothesis by conducting a randomized clinical trial. Symptomatic asthmatics will receive either 12 weeks of exercise therapy or no exercise therapy (continue with current asthma treatment). Asthma-related symptoms and quality of life will be measured at baseline and at the final visit. Induced sputum will be performed at baseline and at the final visit. Various inflammatory markers will be measured from fluid in the lung and blood. These results will have a major impact in defining the role of exercise therapy in the treatment of asthma, which may be revealed as a """"""""new"""""""" anti-inflammatory treatment for asthma.
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