Table 1.

Characteristics of the study groups

	Asthma group	Control group	p value
Age (years)	50.1 ± 15.3	48.6 ± 15.3	0.44
Gender (women:men)	116:51	50:31	0.22
FEV1/FEV1 predicted (%)	79.9 ± 20.0	99.44 ± 9.7	<0.001
BMI (kg/m2)	25.7 ± 3.1	25.1 ± 3.2	0.64
White blood count (109/l)	8.1 ± 3.5	6.67 ± 2.2	<0.001
Number of eosinophils (109/l)	0.37 ± 0.85	0.16 ± 0.16	0.03
Number of neutrophils (109/l)	5.61 ± 7.3	5.07 ± 10.0	0.63
CRP (mg/l)	4.7 ± 9.8	2.1 ± 3.8	0.02
Positive skin prick tests	83	0	N/A

Data are presented as mean values ± SD

Bold values are statistically significant (p < 0.005)