Now research has found that it also acts as an anti-inflammatory.
Just 20 minutes is enough
The University of California San Diego School of Medicine study found one 20-minute session of moderate exercise stimulates the immune system to produce an anti-inflammatory cellular response.
The findings have encouraging implications for people with chronic diseases like arthritis and fibromyalgia.
"Each time we exercise, we are truly doing something good for our body on many levels, including at the immune cell level," said senior author Suzi Hong, PhD, in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
How it works
The brain and sympathetic nervous system - a pathway that serves to accelerate heart rate and raise blood pressure, among other things - are activated during exercise to enable the body to carry out work.
Hormones, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, are released into the blood stream and trigger adrenergic receptors, which immune cells possess.
This activation process during exercise produces immunological responses, which include the production of many cytokines, or proteins, one of which is TNF - a key regulator of local and systemic inflammation that also helps boost immune responses.
