Click here to go back to Articles

A SECRET TIP TO KEEPING A COLD AWAY

Forget about the old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”- try a walk instead.
Just a 30-minute walk a day can cut your number of colds in half.  A recent study in the American Journal of Medicine showed that older women who walked for a half-hour daily for a year reported half the number of colds as non-exercisers.
The study evaluated 115 overweight Seattle-area women who had previously shunned regular exercise. All were past menopause, and averaged 61 years of age.  Fifty-three of the women were assigned to the exercise group, where they spent 30 minutes daily, five days a week, doing moderate-intensity activity like brisk walking. Another 62 were assigned to a control group, which only attended a weekly 45-minute stretching class.
In general, the non-exercisers got two times the number of colds.  It's not clear why exercise proved useful in battling colds, but one possibility is that it improves the body's immune system. The effects accumulate over time.
Another interesting study showed that pumping iron before a flu shot may enhance the immune system's response to the vaccine. However, men and women had different responses.
In the study, the students either rested quietly or did upper arm exercises for about 25 minutes. Six hours later, all the students received a flu shot.  Over the next five months, blood samples were taken from the students in order to measure immune response.  The cell-mediated response remained unchanged in women who exercised, while it increased in males.

The findings from this study help confirm earlier research by Edwards' team that found that the acute stress of exercise could enhance antibody production in humans.

In general studies have shown that obesity weakens the immune system, so this is all further encouragement to get out and exercise regularly in order to improve both your daily life and your overall health.

Read more about obesity and the immune system in this article