Regular exercise has many health benefits, both physical and mental. Not only can it increase your energy levels and elevate your mood, it can also help reduce your risk of chronic disease.
But are there side effects? How much exercise is too much? Research has found that excessive, intense exercise can have a negative impact on the immune system.
“Very healthy people may be more susceptible to viral respiratory infections immediately after strenuous exercise, partly because they have less infection-fighting inflammatory activity,” Ernesto Nakayas, a biomedical scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), said, as quoted by ScienceAlert.
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Nakayasu and his team tested the plasma, urine and saliva of 11 firefighters before and after 45 minutes of strenuous exercise that involved carrying up to 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of gear through hilly terrain.
“We wanted to take a closer look at what’s going on in the body and see if we could detect early signs of danger from fatigue,” explains PNNL bioanalytical chemist Kristin Burnham Johnson, “and perhaps reduce the risks of strenuous exercise for emergency medical personnel, athletes or military personnel.”
Of course, exercise has great health benefits, but this study found that firefighters who exercised may show signs of immune suppression.
The researchers found a decrease in molecules involved in inflammation, as well as an increase in opiorphin, a molecule that dilates peripheral blood vessels.
“[Opiorphin] “Increased blood flow to muscles during exercise may improve the supply of oxygen and nutrients. We believe that the reduction in inflammatory molecules observed in saliva after exercise may represent an adaptive mechanism to improve gas exchange in response to increased cellular oxygen demand,” the team wrote in their paper.
The researchers also found changes in the participants’ oral microbiome.
Because the study included healthy, active participants, further research in the broader community is needed to confirm the findings, the researchers said.
“There is evidence supporting a relationship between physical strain and higher incidence of respiratory infections,” Nakayasu and his team conclude.
The results of the study were published in the Military Medical Research Journal.
