New research suggests that exercise curbs the severity of asthma symptoms and improves quality of life, phillyvoice.com reported.

The researcher's findings suggest that aerobic exercises should be routinely added to the drug treatment of moderate to severe asthma. However, people with asthma often avoid exercise for fear of triggering symptoms.

"This information strongly suggests that aerobic exercise has an anti-inflammatory effect in asthma," Dr. Celso Carvalho, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil, told phillyvoice.com.

For the study, researchers compared the impact of aerobic training and breathing exercises on the severity of symptoms in more than 40 people with moderate to severe asthma.

All the participants, who were aged between 20 and 59, were randomly assigned to either a 30 minute yoga breathing exercise twice a week for 12 weeks, or the breathing exercise plus a 35 minute indoor treadmill session twice weekly for 3 months.

Their bronchial hyperresponsiveness, or BHR for short, was tested at the beginning and end of the three month monitoring period. BHR indicates the speed of airway constriction and inflammation, a hallmark of asthma.

They found that the quality of life score rose significantly in those in the aerobic exercise group, while maximum oxygen intake and aerobic power increased. The effects were most noticeable in those with higher levels of systemic inflammation and poorer symptom control to begin with.

"People with asthma are often worried about exercising as they fear it may trigger their symptoms; however this study gives us more evidence that exercise can actually be beneficial for people with asthma," Andrew Proctor, director of advice and support at Asthma UK, told BT.com.

The findings are detailed in the journal Thorax.