Sport and your defences: how exercise affects your immune system

The other ways that sport affects our bodies are far better known, in fact they are what make us want to do sport in the first place. In this article, we explain the relationship between doing sports and your body’s defences, and the importance of maintaining certain habits to prevent physical exercise from harming your immune system.

When your defences are affected byinternal factors (illness, stress, a sedentary lifestyle or age), and/or external factors (diet, smoking, caffeine or seasonal changes) your immune system is weakened, and other bodily functions are also affected.

To prevent this from happening, it is advisable to do moderate physical activity as this promotes the activation of fat metabolism and has an antioxidant effect and helps to neutralise stress, which is very harmful to your immune system. Sport also triggers an increase in immunocompetent cells, promoting their mobility in the bloodstream and their activation, as well as supporting the increased production of antibodies and anti-inflammatory cytokines.

However, it should be noted that ahigh level of exercise (over 8 hours of training per week) or high-intensity sportlowers the body’s defences because of the stress that is placed on it.

Benefits of sport for your defences

As we have already remarked, moderate physical exercise, performed regularly, benefits and strengthens the immune systemat all ages, especially in young and old people. And this is what it does:

• It activates the metabolism: Exercise triggers fat catabolism, providing energy to activate the muscles and get them moving. This lowers fat levels in the body and improves the conditions for the immune system, heart and other organs.
• Antioxidant effect: when you do moderate physical activity, it promotes the production of enzymesinvolved in the body’sintracellular antioxidant processes, specially in the immune cells: neutrophils and macrophages.
• It releases certain hormones: Hormones regulate growth, reproduction and also act by modulating the actions of the immune system. Exercise promotes the production of adrenaline, of growth hormone (which stimulates the secretion of IL-12, thereby facilitating the activation of immunocompetent cells) and of small amounts of cortisol (which inhibits inflammation and reduces the risk of suffering from inflammatory diseases such as heart attacks, arthrosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, certain tumours, diabetes, etc.).
• It neutralises stress: sport has an impact on the central nervous system, which regulates the immune system directly or through hormonal intermediaries; it produces endorphins (the happiness hormone) with analgesic properties which provide relief, calm and well-being to the body, supporting the immune system because they reduce chronic stress by neutralising stress inducers in the brain and the hypothalamus.
• It triggers the expansion of immunocompetent cells. Exercising increases your capillary blood volume and heart rate, pumping more blood throughout the body and promoting the spread of immunocompetent cells throughout the body via the blood and lymph. So, during moderate exercise, there is an increase in the blood concentration of these cells, enhancing the immune cells’ immune surveillance action, which increases their mobility and makes it easier for them to target microbes present in the bloodstream or in tissues.
• it reduces the risk of infection by removing bacteria from the lungs and respiratory tract; it also produces a change in antibodies and leukocytes (disease-fighting cells of the immune system, proteins that neutralise pathogenic microorganisms and external agents), which circulate more rapidly through the body, detecting and combating disease more quickly and effectively.

Tips for keeping your defences strong if you do sport

Every athlete needs to stay healthy and have a strong immune system to be able to cope with the exercise they are going to do and achieve their goals without harming their health and well-being. It is therefore important to take care of aspects such as:

• Diet. A poor or deficient diet weakens the body’s defences. Therefore, a healthy and balanced diet helps to strengthen them.
• Rest and sleep: both quality and quantity. You should sleep for between 7 and 9 hours a day to allow your body to get the rest it needs. So, if you find it difficult to fall asleep, it is important to adopt healthy bedtime habits such as not using screens, having a cool, light-free bedroom, avoiding napping for more than 20 minutes, etc.
• Changes in temperature. When exercising outdoors, wear the right amount of layers to suit the ambient temperature. It is important not to layer up too much because at the end of the workout, as you are drenched in sweat and your body temperature is high, when you stop exercising your temperature will drop and you will feel cold (exposing you to infections).

If you are an elite athlete or you do lots of hours of sports or high-intensity exercise, you should take extreme care with the first two points above. Probelte Pharma has developed Keriba Sport, a food supplement based on Pomanox, magnesium and vitamin B6, specifically designed to meet your sporting needs. Among other things, it helps to regulate hormonal activity and supports normal red blood cell formation and normal immune system function.