COVID-19 Update : Exercise as Medicine Addendum

Hello again to everyone:

Last newsletter I started the conversation with these words:

We talked about the elephant in the room, which is that everyone agrees that your pre-existing health status has everything to do with if you get COVID-19, how severe it may be, and how long it may last…yet no one talks about how to improve your health/pre-existing condition…unfortunately, no one is talking about how to increase resiliency and wellness as a component of prevention and recovery.

Today, I found this paper that strongly re-enforces what I went over last time. In fact, this paper does it so well and so much better, that I thought it was important to share this with you.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254618301005

Highlights:

·       Acute exercise is an immune system adjuvant that improved defense activity and metabolic health

·       Data support a clear inverse relationship between moderate exercise training and illness risk (more exercise = less disease risk!!!)

·       Exercise training has an anti-inflammatory influence (Fantastic!!)

·       Illness risk increased during intensified training and competition (do not over-do it!)

·       Habitual exercise improved immune regulation, delaying the onset of age-related dysfunction. (wonderful!!)

Bottom Line:

Same as last time: you should be convinced by now that exercise is medicine and important for a healthy and balanced immune response…so keep moving for optimal health!!

PS: First of all, notice that this paper was published one year ago this month. When you scroll down to section 2.3.2, you will think is was written as if they knew this pandemic was coming!!! Here are a few gems from this paper:

“Each bout of moderate physical activity promotes improved but transient immunosurveillance and, when repeated on a regular basis, confers multiple health benefits including decreased illness incidence and dampened systemic inflammation.”

“Research in this area is still emergent, but there is increasing evidence that the circulation surge in cells of the innate immune system with each exercise bout and the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect of exercise training have a summation effect over time in modulating tumorigenesis, atherosclerosis, and other disease processes.” (WOW!!!)