Wednesday, June 23, 1999
Smog can induce asthma problems
Ozone warning continues today
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tristate smog can spring nasty surprises on athletes who believe they are healthy and don't know they are borderline asthmatics.
If breath-taking ozone is bad enough and athletes push themselves, it can trigger exercise-induced asthma at any age, pulmonary specialist Dr. Steven Liggett of University Hospital said during Tuesday's smog alert.
Frightening as that can be, he continued, there are effective treatments.
The eight-hour average smog reading taken at 8 p.m. Tuesday was 97 parts per billion (ppb), which is considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children with asthma, the elderly and those with respiratory problems. A reading below 85 ppb is considered moderate, and 124 ppb or more is considered unhealthy for anyone.
Harry St. Clair, air quality monitoring supervisor for Hamilton County's Department of Environmental Services, said the smog alert would continue through today.
The National Weather Service forecasts mostly sunny weather today, with a high in the upper 80s. Scattered showers and thunderstorms should arrive tonight and bring a 30 percent chance of rain tonight through Friday.
Mr. St. Clair said air quality would improve if it rained.
Even healthy athletes who have no genetic predisposition to asthma come into his office, complaining of shortness of breath as their bodies work overtime to draw vital oxygen from smoggy air, Dr. Liggett said.
Typically, he added, those runners, cyclists and soccer players have moved here from comparatively smog-free communities and being breathless is an unexpected cost of relocation.
Ozone-irritated noses and throats drive athletes into his office every summer, said Dr. Sidney Peerless, an ear-nose- and-throat specialist in Kenwood.
If they play hard enough, he said, ozone “deprives them of a certain amount of oxygen” and “causes deficiencies in their overall performance.”
On the other hand, most healthy athletes should worry more about heat than ozone on smoggy days, said sports medicine specialist Dr. Howard Schertzinger Jr., who practices in Bevis.
Physician to teams at Xavier University and Mount St. Joseph and Wilmington colleges, Dr. Schertzinger said trainers and coaches are familiar with heat intolerance and increasingly sensitive to smog-provoked allergic reactions or asthma during intense workouts or competition.
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