Wrestling Revs Up Immune System in Teens, Study Finds

Thursday, April 1st, 2004

Wrestling Revs Up Immune System in Teens, Study Finds reports on some good news for grapplers:

Cooper’s team evaluated the immune effects of exercise in 11 healthy 14- to 18-year-old boys. Blood samples were drawn before and after the boys participated in a 90-minute wrestling practice.

Wrestling exercise triggered a significant increase in levels of several types of white blood cells, Cooper and his colleagues report. So-called natural killer cells, which play a crucial role in the body’s first line of defense against outside invaders, surged the most, according to the report.

The researchers also found that the level of immune stimulation was related to exercise intensity. However, what role these exercise-related changes play in the overall development of the immune system is not yet understood.

Actually, the immune response appears in response to exercise, in general, in either adults or adolescents:

Although scientists have known that short bouts of exercise stimulate white blood cells in adults, this is the first study to show that exercise has the same effect in healthy adolescent boys.

Leave a Reply