Effects of Cold Air on Respiratory Airflow Resistance in Patients with Respiratory-Tract Disease

The Effect of Environmental Temperature on Airway Resistance in the Asthmatic Child

“…Eight children, four boys and four girls, aged [11][12][13][14][15][16] years, who had received at least 1 year of residential treatment at the Blythedale Children's Hospital because of severe chronic asthma, were studied (Table I). All had strong family histories of allergy and had associated allergic rhinitis or atopic dermatitis.…”

“…A variety of experimental studies, mostly in adult subjects [5,6,9,[14][15][16], have corroborated the general clinical impression that inhalation of cold air can produce an increase in airflow resistance in some individuals, especially in those with chronic lung disease. The increase in airflow resistance seems to result mainly from reflex bronchoconstriction initiated by stimulation of receptors in the airways and not from the effects of surface cooling [14,16].…”

“…The increase in airflow resistance seems to result mainly from reflex bronchoconstriction initiated by stimulation of receptors in the airways and not from the effects of surface cooling [14,16]. Because even extremely cold ambient air is warmed close to body temperature before it reaches the carina [1,2,7,10], it seems likely that the receptors of the reflex response to cold inhalation are in the upper respiratory tract.…”

Bronchial provocation tests.

“…This has been demonstrated when comparing different subjects (Wells, Walker & Hickler, 1960;Simonsson, 1965;Parker, Bilbo & Reed, 1965;Makino, 1966;Itkin, 1967), and also in the same subject when studied under different baseline conditions (Bouhuys, Jonsson, Lichtneckert, Lindell, Lundgren, Lundin & Ringquist, 1960). There have been exceptions to these generalizations (Rubinfeld & Pain, 1977) which may in part be accounted for by the method of expressing the results .…”

Protective Action of Various Drugs on Provocation Tests with Respiratory Irritants in Patients with Chronic Non-specific Lung Disease (CNSLD)

“…It may be an index for the reactivity to different exogenous bronchial irritants: cold air [24], smog [11], sulfur dioxide [9,13], dust [7], smoke [14,17].…”