Adjusted comparisons of health status, exercise tolerance and systemic inflammatory biomarkers between the study groups.

Values are mean ± SEM. Comparisons adjusted by gender, age, pack-year and FEV1 (% pred). Abbreviations: mMRC = modified Medical Research Council dyspnea scale; SGRQ = St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire; EQ-5D = EuroQol 5 Dimensions questionnaire; VAS = Visual analogue scale; LCADL = London Chest Activities of Daily Living; CRP = C-reactive protein; TNF = tumor necrosis factor; IL = interleukin; NOx = nitrites/nitrates.Post-hoc comparisons between groups by Bonferroni test: †p‡p¶p§p