The DOI matches its Crossref record; 35 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Asthma, allergy and the Olympics: a 12-year survey in elite athletes
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: There are no comprehensive surveys relating the reported high prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases in athletes to comorbidities and immune changes associated with intense chronic exercise. This 12-year survey aims to evaluate several clinical, functional and immunological parameters in order to assess features, trend and burden of asthma, allergy, infections and autoimmune diseases, in a large homogeneous population of Olympic athletes. METHODS: Six hundred and fifty-nine Italian Olympic athletes were studied through four cross-sectional surveys performed between 2000 and 2012 before the Summer and Winter Olympics. Clinical diagnosis of allergic, autoimmune and infectious diseases was complemented by: skin-prick tests (n = 569); pulmonary function tests (n = 415); total (n = 158) and specific (n = 72) serum IgE; serum autoantibodies (n = 30), cytokines and growth factors (n = 92); flow cytometry (n = 135). RESULTS: The prevalence of asthma and/or exercise-induced bronchoconstriction was 14.7%, with a significant increase (P = 0.04) from 2000 (11.3%) to 2008 (17.2%). The prevalence of rhinitis, conjunctivitis, skin allergic diseases and anaphylaxis was 26.2%, 20.0%, 14.8% and 1.1%, respectively. Sensitization to inhalant allergens was documented in 49.0% of athletes, being 32.7% in 2000 and 56.5% in 2008 (P < 0.0001). Food, drug and venom allergy was present in 7.1%, 5.0% and 2.1% of athletes, respectively. The high prevalence of asthma and allergy was associated with recurrent upper respiratory tract (10.3%) and herpes (18.2%) infections, an abnormal T cell subset profile and a general down-regulation of serum cytokines with a significantly lower IFN-γ/IL-4 ratio. CONCLUSION: A chronic and intense physical exercise may cause a transient immunodepression with a preferential shift to a Th2 response, associated with abnormalities of the respiratory tract.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Conversely, some evidence shows that long-duration one-off bouts of exercise (e.g., marathon running, especially if this is unaccustomed) and weeks or months of very high-intensity long-duration athletic training, sometimes referred to as “overreaching” or “over-training”, are associated with an increased risk of certain infections, suggesting compromised immunity (Bonini et al. 2015; Derman et al”
From Is immunosenescence influenced by our lifetime “dose” of exercise? (2016) · cites this paper as Bonini et al. 2015
Citations
Cites
Lee, I.-M., Shiroma, E. J., Lobelo, F., Puska, P., Blair, S. N., & Katzmarzyk, P. T. (2012) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(12)61031-9 · Cited by 8,215
Position statement. Part one: Immune function and exercise.
Walsh, N. P., Gleeson, M., Shephard, R. J., Gleeson, M., Woods, J. A., Bishop, N. C., Fleshner, M., Green, C., Pedersen, B. K., Hoffman‐Goetz, L., et al. (2011) · PubMed · Cited by 1,252
Immune function in sport and exercise
Gleeson, M. (2007) · Journal of Applied Physiology · doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00008.2007 · Cited by 1,016
Carlsen, K. ‐., Anderson, S. D., Bjermer, L. H., Bonini, S., Brusasco, V., Canonica, G. W., Cummiskey, J. M., Delgado, L., Giacco, S. R. D., Drobnic, F., et al. (2008) · Allergy · doi:10.1111/j.1398-9995.2008.01662.x · Cited by 327
Self-citationHigh prevalence of asthma in cross country skiers.
Larsson, K., Ohlsén, P., Larsson, L., Malmberg, P., Rydstrom, P. O., & Ulriksen, H. (1993) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.307.6915.1326 · Cited by 297
The FDA and Safe Use of Long-Acting Beta-Agonists in the Treatment of Asthma
Chowdhury, B. A., & Pan, G. J. D. (2010) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmp1002074 · Cited by 249
Helenius, I. J., Tikkanen, H. O., Sarna, S., & Haahtela, T. (1998) · Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology · doi:10.1016/s0091-6749(98)70173-3 · Cited by 242
Airway injury as a mechanism for exercise-induced bronchoconstriction in elite athletes
Anderson, S. D., & Kippelen, P. (2008) · Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology · doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2008.05.001 · Cited by 237
Weiler, J. M., Anderson, S. D., RANDOLPH, C. C., Bonini, S., Craig, T., Pearlman, D. S., Rundell, K. W., Silvers, W. S., Storms, W. W., Bernstein, D. I., et al. (2010) · Annals of Allergy Asthma & Immunology · doi:10.1016/j.anai.2010.09.021 · Cited by 224
Self-citationAllergy and asthma in elite summer sport athletes
Helenius, I. J., & Haahtela, T. (2000) · Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology · doi:10.1067/mai.2000.107749 · Cited by 223
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Moreira, 2009, Does exercise increase the risk of upper respiratory tract infections Br med B, ull, 90, 111
- Belli, 2005, Proportionate mortality of Italian soccer players: is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis an occupational disease Eur J E, pidemiol, 20, 237
- Smith, 2003, Overtraining, excessive exercise, and altered immunity. Is this a T-helper1 versus T-helper2 lymphocytes response Sports M, ed, 33, 347
- Bonini, 2013, Beta2-agonists for exercise-induced asthma., Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 10, CD003564
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Is immunosenescence influenced by our lifetime “dose” of exercise?
Turner, J. E. (2016) · Biogerontology · doi:10.1007/s10522-016-9642-z · Cited by 112
Metadata
- Authors
- Bonini, M., Gramiccioni, C., Fioretti, D., Ruckert, B., Rinaldi, M., Akdis, C., Todaro, A., Palange, P., Carlsen, K.-H., Pelliccia, A., Rasi, G., & Bonini, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Bonini, Matteo
- Bonini, Sergio
- ORCID
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Allergy & Clinical Immunology
- Published
- 2015-04
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 184-192
- ISSN
- 1473-6322 (ISSN-L)
- 1528-4050
- OpenAlex
- W2321542042
- Cited by
- 76
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8
- FWCI
- 6.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.zora.uzh.ch
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Cineca Institutional Research Information System (Tor Vergata University) (submittedVersion)
- UNICA IRIS Institutional Research Information System (University of Cagliari) (submittedVersion)
- Archivio Istituzionale della Ricerca - Università degli Studi della Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" (submittedVersion)
- IRIS Research product catalog (Sapienza University of Rome) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Asthma and respiratory diseases
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Immunology and Allergy › Allergic Rhinitis and Sensitization
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Occupational exposure and asthma
- Keywords
- asthma, allergy, Olympic athletes, exercise-induced bronchoconstriction, allergic rhinitis, conjunctivitis, anaphylaxis, inhalant allergen sensitization, food allergy, drug hypersensitivity, venom allergy, upper respiratory tract infection, herpesvirus infection, T cell subsets, Th2 immune response, IFN-γ/IL-4 ratio, serum cytokines, serum IgE, autoantibodies, immunodepression, exercise training
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Asthma, Autoimmune Diseases, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Herpes Simplex, Humans, Interferon-gamma, Male, Sports, Interleukin-4, Prevalence, Th2 Cells, Athletes
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Asthma, allergy and the Olympics: a 12-year survey in elite athletes. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1097/aci.0000000000000149
- The paper
- Bonini, M., Gramiccioni, C., Fioretti, D., Ruckert, B., Rinaldi, M., Akdis, C., Todaro, A., Palange, P., Carlsen, K.-H., Pelliccia, A., Rasi, G., & Bonini, S. (2015). Asthma, allergy and the Olympics: a 12-year survey in elite athletes. Current Opinion in Allergy & Clinical Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1097/aci.0000000000000149
