Circulating hormones, particularly adrenaline, play a significant role in maintaining resting airway tone in asthma and other diseased states, despite a minor role in normal physiology.
Minor role in healthy airways supports no practice change; leaves open peptide modulation as asthma therapy pending trials.
Publisher Summary Circulating hormones and vasoactive peptides play a minor role in the physiological regulation of airway tone in normal individuals. Adrenaline is the only hormone known to influence bronchomotor tone, and it is only during strenuous exercise that concentrations are elevated sufficiently to cause bronchodilation. Circulating hormones play a more important role in the regulation of airway tone in diseased states of the airways, such as asthma, and possibly in other disorders, such as cor pulmonale, congestive cardiac failure, respiratory failure, and thyroid diseases. Circulating adrenaline has a role in the maintenance of resting airway tone in asthma, particularly in those patients in whom resting airway caliber is already reduced. The elevated adrenaline and atrial natriuretic peptide concentrations achieved after vigorous exercise may act to counteract exercise-induced asthma. Airway tone and reactivity are influenced by oxygen levels, although the precise effects of oxygen tension on airway function in health and airway disease are not clearly established.
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Thomson et al. (1996) studied this question.
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