Chronic disease is the leading cause of death globally led by cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes mellitus.
Regular exercise often protects us against our mortality and especially helps with diseases associated with chronic low grade inflammation such as atherosclerosis – fatty plaque buildup in the arteries.
How?
Exercise produces an anti-inflammatory fluid from muscles called cytokines. In this case cytokine (IL-6) call out to other cytokines IL-1ra and IL-10 to cancel out pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α aka Tumor Necrosis Factor).
Here’s a visual tutorial on the immune system and the inflammatory response if you’d like get more in-depth about it – https://youtu.be/fxsueimrpqk
This is a good thing.
And another reason to add to the heaping amount of evidence of how beneficial exercise is good for all of us.
Take your movement pills!
Sources:
- Petersen, AM & Pedersen, B. (2005) The anti inflammatory effect of exercise. J Appl Physiol 98: 1154–1162, 2005; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00164.2004.
- Photo credit – foter.com
