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Introduction: Studies investigating the effect of physical activity on asthma incidence have often been limited to one sex, and given mixed results.

Aim: To investigate the association of vigorous physical activity with asthma incidence in middle-aged, predominantly European adults.

Methods: Participants from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey with no history of asthma were included (n=2532). The association between baseline vigorous physical active (>1 hour and >2 times per week) and (1) self-report of newly doctor diagnosed asthma and (2) time to first asthma attack, over the following 10 years, was analysed using mixed effects logistic regression and cox regression respectively. To reduce potential reverse causation, incident asthma cases in the 2 years after baseline were excluded. Associations were adjusted for baseline sex, age, smoking, BMI, occupation, heart disease and education.

Results: At baseline the mean age was 43 years and 47% were female. There were 44 (1.7%) incident doctor diagnosed asthma cases and 38 (1.5%) new cases of asthma attack reported. There was evidence that being vigorously physically active at baseline was associated with an increased odds of newly doctor diagnosed asthma (odds ratio 1.93, 95% Confidence Interval 1.04, 3.57, p=0.036). There was no association with time to first asthma attack.

Conclusion: The health benefits of physical activity are well documented. However, our data do not support the presupposition that vigorous physical activity would reduce asthma incidence. We observed an increased risk of report of doctor diagnosed asthma with vigorous physical activity in this general adult population, as has been observed with athletes.