Conditioning Research

I saw this reported today in a couple of places - including on grough a UK outdoors website - anyway it is a report of recent research that looks at the impact of exercise on immunity, particularly as medated through natural killer cells (NK). It is reported as saying that moderate exercise is good whereas chronic endurance exercise is a problem. It is not clear where strength training would fit in to this analysis: The major players in this immune regulation are immune cells called Natural Killer (NK) cells which are important weapons in the fight against viral infections. NK cells recognise viral-infected cells as foreign invaders and force them to commit suicide." During moderate exercise the activity of NK cells is enhanced, whereas stressful endurance activities such as marathons can turn down NK cell activity. These changes are tightly regulated by stress hormones and other immune cells," explained Professor Gleeson. There is a clear take-home message from our cu...

Wow this is interesting : a natural immune defence system is linked directly to the metabolic status via the insulin signalling pathway. ....in the case of a low insulin level the FOXO transcription factor is activated. .... FOXO switches genes for immune defence proteins on when energy is needed. These antimicrobial peptides (AMP) - not to be confused with antibodies – are subsequently jettisoned by the body's cells. They destroy possible pathogens by dissolving their cell walls. 'This hap pens every minute every day,' the director of studies Prof. Michael Hoch ......explains. ' What is fascinating about this is that a function of the immune system directly depends on how much and what we eat .' In situations of hunger which mean stress for the body cells, the body releases antimicrobial peptides as a precaution in order to protect itself. 'The barrier between body and outside world is apparently fortified in a potentially dangerous situation in which we have t...

Matt and Seth have been posting interesting things recently on the so-called hygiene hypothesis Here is another study Think again about keeping little ones so squeaky clean "Contrary to assumptions related to earlier studies, our research suggests that ultra-clean, ultra-hygienic environments early in life may contribute to higher levels of inflammation as an adult, which in turn increases risks for a wide range of diseases," said Thomas McDade, lead author of the study, associate professor of anthropology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. Relatively speaking, humans only recently have lived in such hyper-hygienic environments, he stressed. I had all this explained to me recently by an immunologist and it is more complicated than it sounds in terms of balancing immune responses....but the overall picture is that we were not designed to live in such sterile conditions . I've heard of a...

Those eggs look delicious! Here is a study that came out today which, while confirming the health benefits of a low carbohydrate diet also indicates that such diets benefit from the inclusion of eggs. Eggs modulate the inflammatory response to carbohydrate restricted diets in overweight men The full article is available for free download, or you can just look at the abstract. Here is the background: Carbohydrate restricted diets (CRD) consistently lower glucose and insulin levels and improve atherogenic dyslipidemia [decreasing triglycerides and increasing HDL cholesterol (HDL-C)]. We have previously shown that male subjects following a CRD experienced significant increases in HDL-C only if they were consuming a higher intake of cholesterol provided by eggs compared to those individuals who were taking lower concentrations of dietary cholesterol. Here, as a follow up of our previous study, we examined the effects of eggs (a source of both dietary cholesterol and lutein) on adiponect...

Here is an interesting study..... Exercise bands are interesting pieces of equipment. They are used by physiotherapists in rehabilitation for injuries, as a piece of training equipment in their own right and also as a method of adding variable resistance to the power lifts - the further you pull the harder it gets. This study caught my eye because I think I have experienced the phenomenon to which it refers. Exercise with latex sport bands represents a risk for latex allergic patients. Based on two clinical observations of adverse reactions during exercise with latex sport bands, we aimed to assess the possible risk for allergic patients posed by this equipment by investigating allergen content and IgE binding potential. Protein extracts of three different latex sport bands were characterized with sera of latex allergic patients. The IgE recognition profile of the allergic patients was identified by component resolved diagnosis and the allergen composition of the extracts was chara...