Can you get the flu from exercising? yes and no.

A new study shows that doing too much exercise can actually decrease your immune system but doing just the right amount will increase it. How much is too much?

Back in my wild and crazy days I remember going to dance clubs and coming home when the sun came up and every time I would do this I would have a cold or flu the following day. Here’s why.

Yes folks, there was a time when I would go to bed at 5.30 am, not get out of bed like these days. To tell you the truth, I never really wanted to go ‘clubbing’. After all, it’s a place where you ‘dance’. And those of you who have been unfortunate enough to see my dancing you would understand why it’s about the last place I would want to go.  Its not that I don’t like dancing, I do kind of like it, but it’s a bit like the singer in the shower, you don’t mind singing by yourself in the bathroom but you are not going to be singing for all and sundry to hear. Not if you are as bad at singing as I am at dancing. Since being in Latin America though I have taken some salsa lessons and after about 10 lessons my friend said watching me do salsa was not so much like watching a man dancing but more like watching a man putting out a fire with his feet. The rhythm gods were not kind to me at birth I’m afraid. Please god, let my son inherit his mother’s genes when it comes to dancing.

Anyway, I would go out all night and I would then get a cold soon after-every time! I knew I was just doing too much by being out all night and it would tip my immune system over the edge and ‘bang’, the cold and flu bugs would say ‘yes, a compromised immune system-go get him boys!’

Here is a look at two recent studies:

The first was published in the journal of brain, behavior, and immunity where they had two groups of mice. One group took it easy in their cages. The article actually quotes them as ‘resting comfortably’ which is a funny image for me to think of a group of mice just hanging out resting comfortably. However, I digress. (Again). The other group were put through their paces on little mouse treadmills until they were completely exhausted. They did this for three days running. (I know which group I would have rather been in) After this, they exposed the two groups of mice to the flu virus. Many more of the treadmill group that had been exhausted got the flu and with symptoms that was more severe.

The second experiment was also published in the same journal by a group of scientists from the University of Illinois. What they did was to infect their mice with the flu beforehand . The first group was in the comfy chairs resting comfortably and the second group ran for just 20 minutes which is ‘an easy jog for a mouse’ says the article. The third group was made to run for 3 hours (which I imagine is not such a ‘walk in the park’ in mouse running terms). They did this for three days running (no pun intended) until they began to show flu symptoms. Over half of the group that were resting on their behinds doing nothing died, only 12% of the group who were doing the leisurely 20 minute jog died but over 70% of the exhausted group died and the other 30% of those were on their last legs!

So you see there is something called a j-shaped curve where too little exercise leaves you susceptible to colds and flu but also too much as well. Doing nothing or too much exercise not only leads you more susceptible but will also worsen your condition if you do have symptoms. A little exercise however, improves your immune system.

How this actually affects our immune system is still not exactly clear. Although the more intense the exercise and longer the duration, the longer your immune system will be down. It could be from a few hours to a few days.

There was a study done in the journal of strength and conditioning research which looked at the cellular markers of immune system activity in the saliva of 24 professional football players from Spain. They checked them before and after a strenuous 70 minute soccer match.  Before the match the soccer players all had normal levels of immunoglobulin which are your little guys that fight off colds, flu’s and infections. However, after the match they had levels that had fallen considerably.

Another study was done with marathon runners. They asked 1694 runners if they had had colds, flu’s or other infectious illnesses 3 weeks coming into their events (an increase in workload normally) or 3 weeks after their event. Over 20% of the runners were sick during that period. However, that still means that 80% were ok.

Therefore, if you are a couch potato you stand a higher risk of getting colds and flu’s. If you overly exercise you have an even higher risk and if you moderately exercise you are at a much lower risk than both of these groups because it actually helps boost your immune system. Of course, we haven’t looked at the elements involving poor diet and nutrition, stress factors etc which also have an affect. So if you feel a cold coming on you may like to go for a small walk to improve your resistance. I advise you to listen to your body though. If you have no energy you are more than likely going to overdo it. If you have a cold don’t go running that 10 mile jog today as you will more than likely worsen your symptoms.

And I still want to see that group of mice who were supposedly resting comfortably’. I just can’t get the image out of my mind of mice sitting around the TV with their feet up watching the game ‘resting comfortably’.