Getting regular exercise and eating fresh vegetables can ease the symptoms of asthma, the National Center for Global Health and Medicine has reported.

It is the first time that a healthy lifestyle — rather than a drug treatment — has been reported to control the symptoms of asthma.

"Patients with asthma need to seek a particularly healthy lifestyle," said Motoyasu Iikura, a doctor at the center's respiratory medicine department in Tokyo.

In the study, released Friday, a medical center team surveyed 437 adult asthma patients to determine the correlation between lifestyle habits, such as drinking, exercising and eating, and the degree of symptom control.

They found that people who exercise at least an hour a week and eat at least five helpings of fresh vegetables a day successfully control the symptoms.

Neither body mass index (BMI), commonly used to screen for obesity, nor drinking habits were linked to symptom control.