The effect of smoking on respiratory functions in athletes

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of smoking on respiratory functions in athletes. A total of 12 American football players with an age, height and body mass means of 22.50±1.62 years, 182.83±5.85 cm., 88.91±18.99 kg. voluntarily participated in the study. The participants were competitive players with at least five years of continuous training and competition experience. Respiratory functions of the athletes were measured with a Minispir hand-held spirometer. Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), Peak Expiratory Flow (PEF), Maximal Voluntary Ventilation (MVV) values were measured. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 26 package program. Because the distribution of the data was not normal, the Mann Whitney-U test and Spearman correlation test, a nonparametric test, were used to compare the data between the smoker and non-smoker groups. The significance level was accepted as p