Immune System Boost – March 18, 2020
It’s Science Wednesday! With all the talk about the coronavirus, this post is about boosting your immune system – namely in the form of exercise. If you still have the option to get outside and go for a walk, hike or bike ride, do it! It’s easy to stay away from people while outdoors. If you’re confined indoors, there are still ways to get moderate exercise and you don’t even need equipment to do it (for more on this, friend request me (Ulyana Nadia Horodyskyj) or my husband (Ricardo Pena) to see FB Live videos on our pages.
Research shows that acute exercise (moderate to vigorous intensity, less than 60 minutes) aids the immune system. With near daily exercise, these acute changes add up to overall improve and enhance the body’s defense activity and metabolic health. Habitual exercise improves immune regulation and also delays the onset of age-related dysfunction. When it comes to nutrition during exercise, a consistent finding is that carbohydrate intake from drinks (6-8%) or sugar-dense fruits such as bananas, leads to reduced stress hormones and dampened inflammation.
If you’re an athlete, intensely training or in competition, the opposite holds true: your illness risk increases. New research insights reveal that intense and prolonged activity can cause transient immune dysfunction by decreasing immune cell metabolic capacity.
In the time of coronavirus, aim for moderate exercise daily, inside or outside. Just keep moving!
For more details on the science, check out: https://www.sciencedirect.com/…/artic…/pii/S2095254618301005