How exercise may help us fight off colds
- December 20, 2015, 6:43 pm
- National News
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HQ City Report
QUETTA: Working out could help us fight off colds and other infections, according to a timely new study. The study, which found that regular exercise strengthens the body’s immune system in part by repeatedly stressing it, was conducted in animals. But the results most likely apply to people, the researchers say, and could offer further incentive for us to remain physically active this winter.
In broad terms, our immune system reacts to invading microbes through a variety of cells. Some of these cells don’t directly combat the infection, but instead promote the development of inflammation. When we think of inflammation, we usually think of fever, swelling and redness. But inflammation can also be a good thing, helping the body to heal itself as it fights invading microbes.
The problem is that inflammation can easily get out of hand. If the inflammatory response to an infection
or injury is too robust or indiscriminate, the inflammation can ultimately cause more tissue damage and lingering health problems than it prevents.
Scientists have long tried to determine why inflammation sometimes grows rampant in the body. One thing they’ve noticed is that fat cells are particularly adept at producing substances that promote inflammation, in part as a response to messages from the immune system.
But fat cells also often produce inflammatory substances in greater amounts than needed to fight germs, in some cases even when there is no actual infection. As a result, past studies have found, obesity in animals and people can lead to elevated levels of inflammation throughout the body and, interestingly, a weaker overall immune response to an infection or illness.
Because of these links between fat cells and the immune response, scientists at Chosun University in Gwangju, South Korea, and other institutions recently began to consider whether exercise might affect the body’s response to germs. Among the many effects of physical activity, exercise generally reduces the amount of fat in the body and also alters levels of inflammation.
So for the new study, which was published last month in Scientific Reports, they gathered 28 average-weight male laboratory mice and tested their blood and fat cells for markers of inflammation and other immune cells. They then had half of the mice begin a swimming regimen, during which the animals paddled around a warmish pool for 10 minutes, five days a week, for three weeks.
Mice aren’t natural or eager swimmers and tend to thrash in the water, so the exercise was moderately strenuous for them, the equivalent of what 30 minutes or so of jogging might be for us.
The other mice remained sedentary.
Throughout the three weeks, the scientists monitored all of the animals’ levels of inflammation and what was happening, if anything, to their fat cells.
