Want to Build a Robust Immune System? Even 20 minutes of Exercise Can Help

AHA Publisher — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 08:00:35 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – As many people have noticed over the past year, government and public health officials talk almost exclusively about handwashing, staying home, socially distancing, wearing masks, shuttering businesses, and more recently lining up for the COVID-19 vaccine as a way to combat the pandemic. Many also noticed these officials continually moved the goal post while doing so — from “don’t wear a mask” to “80 percent Americans need to get the vaccine to fight COVID.” However you feel about these enforced measures, one thing is clear to the more health-conscious among us: the fact that officials aren’t talking about healthy lifestyle habits as a way to support a stronger immune system is an egregious oversight. Stellar among these good for you habits that people should do more of is exercise — and a study reveals it might not even take as much as you’d think. Short Bouts of Daily Exercise Can Do Wonders for Your Immune System In a paper published in the March 2017 volume of Brain, Behavior and Immunity, a team of researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine begins by acknowledging that regular exercise is known to offer anti-inflammatory effects. For their study, however, the team wanted to assess the effects of acute bouts of exercise on the immune system’s inflammatory responses. To conduct their analysis, the researchers asked 47 people to spend 20 minutes walking on a treadmill at a moderate intensity level. The researchers then took blood samples before and immediately after exercise sessions to determine if there were any changes to their immune systems after such a short amount of time. The results confirmed their hypothesis: even a relatively short bout of aerobic exercise would yield immune-supportive benefits in the body. Specifically, the short bout of exercise yielded a 5 percent decrease in the number of cells that produce immune molecules called cytokines. Cytokines, including tumor necrosis factors (TNF), are proteins that have important roles in the body, such as killing damaged or cancerous cells. While you might think that reducing the amount of cancer-fighting cells in the body only spells bad news, the truth is TNF, and other cytokines are also pro-inflammatory — and having too many of them in your system (which may be caused by things like chronic stress) can contribute to disease. Remember the phrase “cytokine storm?” This is an excessive, over-the-top inflammatory response experienced by some severely ill patients with COVID-19. This excessive immune system reaction gone haywire is exactly what we want to avoid as our bodies fight infection — and something which the UCSD researchers believe exercise can help with. They postulate that the lowered “inflammatory responses during acute exercise may protect against chronic conditions with low-grade inflammation” and further hypothesize that the exercise-induced release of catecholamine hormones like epinephrine and dopamine could drive the anti-inflammatory effect. Wait, There Is More! These Five Lifestyle Habits Also Lower Inflammation One takeaway from this research is that something is better than nothing at all when it comes to exercise. And even at just 20 minutes of moderately intense exercise per day, you’re nearly hitting the minimum recommendation of 150 minutes per week, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In addition to staying active, let’s recall the other things you can do to fight inflammation, support your immune health, and keep you safer from contagious (or chronic) disease: Maintain a normal body weight (as excess body fat is shown to promote inflammation) Eat anti-inflammatory foods, such as those featured in the Mediterranean diet Get the recommended 7-9 hours of quality sleep every night Limit your alcohol intake Manage your stress (hard but not impossible, even during a global crisis) Sources for this article include: MedicalNewsToday.com, Obesityinaction.org, ScienceDirect.com, Health.gov, NIH.gov, Hindawi.com To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

The post Want to Build a Robust Immune System? Even 20 minutes of Exercise Can Help appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

FDA Approves Peanut Allergy Treatment for Children and Teens

AHA Publisher — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 08:00:38 +0000

University of Chicago Medical Center via Newswise – The immunotherapy drug for children and teens is also the first ever food allergy treatment approved by the FDA. Newswise — The University of Chicago Medicine was part of a landmark clinical trial that led to approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the first oral immunotherapy treatment for peanut allergy in children and teens. Peanuts are among the most common food allergies, affecting an estimated 1.6 million children in the United States, according to a 2018 study published in the journal Pediatrics. Palforzia, manufactured by Aimmune Therapeutics Inc., should significantly reduce the severity of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, after accidental peanut exposure. “The patients I treated have universally expressed relief that they no longer have to live in constant fear that one wrong bite of something with peanuts will result in an emergency injection of epinephrine,” said Christina Ciaccio, MD, MSc, UChicago Medicine associate professor of pediatrics and medicine and the site’s principal investigator. Ciaccio administered the treatment as part of a 2018 clinical trial funded by Aimmune Therapeutics. During the trial, patients at sites, including at UChicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital, received the treatment. The research was conducted in 10 countries across North America and Europe. “I cannot emphasize enough what a game-changer it will be for both food allergy practitioners and patients to have an FDA-approved product to effectively treat peanut allergy,” Ciaccio said. “To date, we have not been able to do anything but tell patients to carefully monitor what they are eating and to always be prepared with an epinephrine autoinjector in case a reaction does occur.” Aimmune Therapeutics has not yet announced when PALFORZIA will be available to patients. To read the original article click here.

The post FDA Approves Peanut Allergy Treatment for Children and Teens appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

epinephrine Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Want to Build a Robust Immune System? Even 20 minutes of Exercise Can Help

FDA Approves Peanut Allergy Treatment for Children and Teens