Regular exercise is one of the foundation stones of healthy living. It improves cardiovascular health, lowers blood pressure, helps regulate body weight, and protects against a variety of diseases. But does that help to keep the immune system healthy? Much like a balanced diet, exercise will contribute to a healthy immune system and general good health. It can contribute even more directly by promoting good circulation which allows the immune system’s cells and substances to move freely through the body and do their job effectively.

Some scientists are attempting to take the next step to determine if exercise directly affects the susceptibility of an individual to infection. Some researchers, for example, are looking at whether extreme amounts of intensive exercise can cause athletes to become sick more often or impair their immune function in some way. Scientists usually ask athletes to exercise intensively to conduct this kind of research; scientists check their blood and urine before and after the exercise to identify any changes in components of the immune system such as cytokines, white blood cells, and other antibodies. While some changes have been noted, immunologists still do not know what these changes mean concerning human immune response. For example, no one yet knows whether an increase in cytokines is beneficial or has any real impact on immune response. Similarly, no one knows if a general rise in the number of white cells is a positive or a bad thing.

All these subjects are elite athletes who are under extreme physical exertion. What are normal people doing regular exercise? Does that help maintain a balanced immune system? For now, while a direct beneficial connection has not been identified, it is fair to recognize moderate daily exercise as a beneficial arrow in the quiver of healthy living, a potentially important means for keeping your immune system healthy along with the rest of your body.

An approach that could help researchers obtain more comprehensive answers as to whether lifestyle factors such as exercise help improve immunity benefits from human genome sequencing. This opportunity for research based on updated biomedical technology can be used to answer this and similar questions about the immune system more comprehensively. For example, microarrays or human-genome-based “gene chips” allow scientists to simultaneously look at how thousands of gene sequences are switched on or off in response to different physiological conditions—for example, athletes’ blood cells before and after the exercise. Researchers are hoping to use these tools to analyze patterns to better understand how the numerous paths involved act at once. 

The content of this post is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, or as a substitute for the medical advice of your physician.