Dr. Giulia Enders

Well, one interesting factor that the immune system will even use for itself or manipulate in order to have better outcomes is just having a stronger, faster heartbeat.

When you get sick, you notice that your heartbeat will get a bit faster.

And well, it does make sense because the immune system, the cells, they travel through the bloodstream.

So if you have more pumping going on, they get everywhere faster and they can, you know, be pumped around more often and visit more areas in the same amount of time if you just pump a bit more.

And the important thing about exercise is that you have immune cells in the venous system and lymphatic system of your tissues.

And by activating muscles, you press them up back into the circulation from the tissue.

So you give it a little boost, which otherwise happens just in a longer period of time.

You boost it while moving because you pump everything faster and with more force.

So does that mean you should be doing exercise when you're sick?

No, not when you're sick, not necessarily.

That can be bad for the heart, especially when you have a viral infection.

But when you exercise regularly, when you're healthy, then you train your heart and your lungs to pump around stronger.

And also it makes the whole tissues being elastic.

You have more blood flow, so more immune cells observing and checking if everything's okay.

And in case you are sick, you have trained the whole system to get along with this rise in blood pressure and heartbeat.

And also what we see is muscle.

The effect of muscle on the immune system is really interesting.

What's that?

Muscle is a big amount of our body.

Well, we have so many big muscles and they can influence the immune system by regulating it down.