The Risks of Diving with Asthma

Jonathan Chou is a financial, strategic, and operations management executive with 25 years of experience serving as CFO for banking and finance companies. Away from work, Jonathan Chou enjoys playing tennis and scuba diving.

When scuba diving, it is important to recognize the risks and dangers inherent in the activity. Your ability to enjoy scuba diving is limited by your swimming skills and breath control, making some question if it is safe to scuba dive with asthma. Historically, people with asthma have been prohibited from the pursuit, but there is conflicting research on if this is sensible and safe or not.

Asthma is primarily a condition that involves chronic inflammation of the lungs. When the lungs become inflamed the asthmatic person’s airways can narrow or swell, which makes breathing difficult if not impossible. Some scuba experts theorize that there is a risk that breathing in the cold, dry air from the breathing apparatus combined with the physical exertion of swimming underwater could trigger lethal asthma attacks. Research suggests that the danger is largely theoretical, with little evidence to support it. At the same time, studies have historically excluded individuals with the most severe cases of asthma, making the cautious approach more sensible in these circumstances. Cases of mild or controlled asthma are as common in the field of diving as in the general population, implying that for such individuals their risk of triggering an attack while diving is no greater than usual.