[Concept of an additional physical education lesson in English ("moving words") per week in a secondary school: Results of controlled investigation]. / Konzept einer zusätzlichen Sportstunde pro Woche in englischer Sprache ("moving words") in einer Mittelschule : Ergebnisse einer kontrollierten Studie.

BACKGROUND: Physical exercise improves physical fitness of children and pupils may also benefit from sports with regard to cognitive competence. However, timetable and syllabus often give little scope so that alternatives such as combined lessons in English and sports may be suited to integrate the desire for exercise and leaning. METHOD: Parallel classes of a secondary school (form V; 39 pupils) were determined by random as control group (CG: age 10.5 ys, m 11, f 10) or intervention group (IG: age 10.7 ys, m 7, f 11). All pupils got regular physical education of 3 hours per week. In the IG one English lesson was relocated into the sports hall according to the "moving words" concept for one year. Both physical fitness (Munich fitness test) and concentration (d2-test) were assessed before and 3 times with intervals of 3 months. Moreover, 6-month marks were documented. All data were analyzed descriptively in addition to confirmative statistics (Repeated Measures ANOVA). RESULTS: Neither physical fitness nor concentration showed significant differences between the two groups. Both groups improved both criteria within one year, girls of the IG tended to work exacter with fewer mistakes (d2-Test), but dropped behind with regard to physical fitness. Otherwise, boys in the IG ameliorated rate of mistakes, tempo and exactness in the d2-test (p < 0.05) including a positive trend in physical fitness. Whereas English marks in the reports of the IG improved (0.4 versus 0.1), in both groups marks in sports did not change substantially. CONCLUSIONS: Particularly, boys benefit from the "moving-words" concept improving both their physical fitness as well as concentration. Why girls aged 10 to 11 years, on the contrary, do not benefit from the combined learning to the same degree is an interesting issue for further studies.

Exhaled breath condensate nitrite--methodological problems of sample collection.

BACKGROUND: Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) analysis is a promising new method to monitor airway inflammation, however there are still multiple open methodological questions. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate methodological influences on nitrite in EBC (surface contamination, flow dependency, storage time and inter- and within day variability). MATERIAL/METHODS: EBC samples of 10 healthy children, 10 healthy adults and 71 asthmatic children were collected and nitrite was analysed using the Griess reaction. Collector devices where either air-dried after disinfection or stored in distilled water till usage. Repeatability measurements were performed at three different times during one day and on five consecutive days. Flow dependency was analysed at 200 and 400 ml/s expiratory flow and storage stability was investigated at several time points within the first three hours after collection of the sample. In a preliminary study EBC nitrite was analysed in asthmatic children of different severity. RESULTS: Surface contamination appears to have a profound influence on nitrite levels and both within-day and inter-day variability is high. We found no flow dependency, and storage stability was satisfying although with considerable variety in several samples. There were no significant differences between the nitrite levels of the different asthmatic subgroups nor between the asthmatic children and the controls. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that EBC nitrite is a substance with a wide variety of influencing factors and different sources of origin. This has to be kept in mind when using exhaled nitrite as a biomarker for airway inflammation.