Study Finds a Potential Downside to Vigorous Exercise That We Didn’t Know About

Bad information for excessive activity junkies in the market: an excessive amount of energetic activity may just briefly make your immune method much less environment friendly.

At least, that is what the proof presentations. An research from 2023 of over 4,700 post-exercise fluid molecules from firefighters suggests staff who require intense health coaching, akin to emergency staff and athletes, might put themselves in peril of a few diseases.

“People who are very fit might be more prone to viral respiratory infection immediately after vigorous exercise,” stated Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) biomedical scientist Ernesto Nakayasu. “Having less inflammatory activity to fight off an infection could be one cause.”

Watch the next video for a abstract of the find out about’s findings:

While there is strong evidence to suggest that moderate physical activity among healthy individuals can favor the immune system in the long run, what happens to the immune system directly following vigorous exercise is controversial.

There is little reliable evidence that supports the claim that intense exercise heightens the risk of opportunistic infections, although a few previous research have noted self-reported upper tract respiratory infections in athletes, compared to control groups, after strenuous activities. Whether these are correlations or causations is unknown.

So Nakayasu and colleagues tested the blood plasma, urine, and saliva, from 11 firefighters before and after 45 minutes of intense exercise hauling up to 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of gear over hilly terrain.

“We sought after to take an in-depth have a look at what is going down within the frame and spot if we are in a position to come across threat from exhaustion in its earliest levels,” explained PNNL bioanalytical chemist Kristin Burnum-Johnson. “Perhaps we will scale back the danger of strenuous activity for first responders, athletes, and participants of the army.”

There’s no question exercise does wonders for our health, from boosting moods to strengthening our immune systems. But as in previous studies, the new research detected possible signs of immune suppression within the worked-out firefighters.

Amidst the expected physical changes helping our bodies maintain the increase in fluids, energy, and oxygen that exercise demands, there was a decrease in molecules involved in inflammation. This was accompanied by increased opiorphin, a dilator of peripheral blood vessels.

What these changes ultimately mean for the short-term function of the immune system is unclear, but the researchers have a few ideas.

“[Opiorphin] might building up blood float to muscle groups throughout the activity routine to toughen the supply of oxygen and vitamins,” the group writes of their paper.

“We postulate that the lower in inflammatory molecules we seen within the saliva after activity may constitute an adaptive mechanism to toughen fuel trade according to upper cell oxygen call for.”

There was change in the participants’ oral microbiome too. The scientists suspect this was due to the increase in antimicrobial peptides found in the firefighter’s mouths after their intense activity, possibly to compensate for the immune suppression, although this conclusion is contested.

“However, this building up in antimicrobial peptides had no impact on inhibiting E. coli expansion,” Nakayasu and co-workers elaborate, “suggesting a restricted capability of antimicrobial peptides throughout the oral hollow space to offer protection to towards host infections.”

That said, other scientists argue some of the changes observed may not be indications of immune suppression but of a “heightened state of immune surveillance and immune legislation“.

While a within-subject comparison reduced the impact of their small sample size, firefighters experience unique exposures to pollutants during fires which may also change their immune reactions.

What’s more, this study only considered healthy and active men, the researchers cautioned, so further research amongst a broader community is needed to confirm their findings.

However, taken with previous studies, “there may be proof supporting a dating between bodily calls for and the next prevalence of respiration infections,” Nakayasu and team conclude.

This research was published in Military Medical Research.

An previous model of this text used to be printed in November 2023.