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6 benefits of physical activity10/17/2023 These caps, called telomeres, naturally shorten as we age, with each cell division. Studies, like a new one in the journal Preventive Medicine which found that exercise is linked to longer caps at the ends of chromosomes, have helped flesh this out a bit more. So all this is to say that there’s probably a sweet spot somewhere in the middle for optimal cardiovascular health.Įxercise has long been correlated with a longer life, but it’s only recently started to become clear why this might be. Additionally, too much exercise has also been shown to be stressful to the heart. Some have found that light activity is even enough to help the heart, but not all research confirms this, so it’s a little hard to tell how low levels of activity affect heart health over the long term. Studies have suggested that 30 minutes per day is good enough to keep the heart in shape, while others have suggested we do more than this to get a real effect. Exercise is one of the best-illustrated things we can do for our hearts, and this includes markers like blood pressure and cholesterol, in addition the physical structure of the heart itself, and blood vessel function. Reduces the risk of heart attack and strokeĪlthough the cardiovascular effects of exercise are partly related to inflammation, they still deserve their own category. So every time you exercise you’d see this effect, which will be cumulative over time.” “These significant immune effects we observed occurred immediately with one bout of exercise, and likely will occur each time one exercises. “What I’d caution readers is not to view our results as ‘one 20-minute moderate exercise will be a cure for all inflammatory conditions,’” says Hong. That said, there’s an effect that accrues over time, which is what you want to harness by being active at least a few times a week. In fact, we have also found that higher physical fitness is associated with better regulation of inflammatory activities of immune cells through stress hormones even among obese individuals.”Ī workout once in a blue moon won’t do it, she says: you really have to exercise regularly, since hormone levels largely return to baseline after you exercise. “Our work has shown that each moderate, relatively short exercise bout exerts regulatory/suppression effects over inflammatory activities of immune cells," says Hong, "and in order to maximize this ‘benefit,’ repeated and regular exercise is recommended. Previous studies from her lab have also shown that the exercise is linked to changes in the secretion of stress hormones like epinephrine (a.k.a. They measured levels of TNF, an inflammatory marker, before and after the exercise, and found that there was a 5% reduction in the number of immune cells that produced the marker. “The thing about exercise is that it has a multitude of effects on many different organs and systems,” says Suzi Hong, who studies exercise and immune system activation at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, “so often it is difficult to pinpoint which organ systems are influenced and which ones are not with which specific effects for what conditions… The anti-inflammatory effects of exercise are likely one of the underpinnings of its effects against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, certain cancers, neurodegenerative conditions and more.”Ī new study from her lab shows that a 20-minute moderate workout has measurable effects on the immune system: Participants were asked to walk or jog on a treadmill, depending on their fitness level. Exercise is known to reduce a number of inflammatory markers, like c-reactive protein (CRP) and internleukin-6 (IL-6), which are linked to a number of diseases. This one is a big one, since inflammation may be an underlying cause of a wide range of diseases and disorders in both body and brain. Reduces inflammation (and cancer and diabetes and…)
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