Relações entre atividade física, tabagismo, transportabilidade mucociliar nasal e função pulmonar

Abstract

***Relationships between physical activity, smoking, nasal mucociliary transportability and pulmonary function***AIMS: To compare smokers and non-smokers, physically active and insufficiently active, on mucociliary transportability and lung function.METHODS: Cross-sectional study. The volunteers were interviewed to obtain personal data, information on smoking habits and level of physical activity. Then, they were evaluated for anthropometric data, nasal mucociliary transport (by saccharin transit time test) and lung function (by measuring forced expiratory volume in the first second and forced vital capacity). Analysis of variance was used for investigation between the groups and analysis of covariance (adjusted for confounding factors) to investigate cofactors on the transit time of saccharin. The significance level of 5% and the 95% confidence interval were adopted.RESULTS: A total of 139 individuals were selected and assigned to four groups, according to the smoking habits and the level of physical activity: 45 smokers who were not physically active; 25 physically active smokers; 31 non-smokers who were not physically active; and 38 physically active non-smokers. The mean age and body mass index did not present statistically significant differences between the four groups. In the saccharin transit time test, physically active non-smokers presented a time of 8.73 minutes, while in the insufficiently active, the time was 13.0 minutes (p=0.0409). Physically active smokers presented lower values of forced expiratory volume in the first second compared to those who were not physically active (z score in relation to predicted values -1.01 and -0.55, respectively; p=0.0207).CONCLUSIONS: In this sample of healthy adults of both sexes, the practice of physical activity was beneficial for nasal mucociliary transportability, but only in individuals who never smoked. On the other hand, physically active smokers presented lower values of lung function when compared to insufficiently active smokers, suggesting that physical exercises may cause additional lung function impairment if the individual does not change the smoking habit.