Running Can Help Body Produce Immune Cells Against Cancer

Pernille Hojman University of Copenhagen natural killer cells

By Arvin Matthew Paculaba , Parent Herald Feb 25, 04:40 am

Having an active lifestyle can lessen your chances of developing cancer. If that's too much for you to maintain, scientists say habitual running might also do the trick.

A new study published on Cell Metabolism via The New York Times revealed that running can strengthen the body's immunity against cancer. Dr. Pernille Hojman and his team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen draw their conclusion from experimenting on mice.

The mice were injected with melanoma skin cancer cells before being split into two groups. Half of the mice were equipped with running wheels while the other half remained sedentary.

After a month's worth of observation, scientists discovered that the first group of mice remained generally healthy. However, some of the runners did develop cancer, but only to a minimal extent.

Dr. Hojman and his team then extracted blood samples from the two groups. They found out that the runners had much higher levels of adrenaline, interkulin-6 and natural killer cells compared to their sedentary counterparts.

Natural killer cells are white blood cells in the immune system that aggressively fend of physiologically abnormal cellls. according to Medical News Today. The greater their number, the less likely cancerous cells can ever develop.

Meanwhile, CATIE pointed out that interleukin-6 is a type of cytokine that the immune system releases to defend the body against all sorts of infection. That said, too much of interleukin in the body may result in the weakening of the immune system.

Regarding the recently publicized experiment, Dr. Hojman said, "we show that voluntary wheel running in mice can reduce the growth of tumors, and we have identified an exercise-dependent mobilization of natural killer cells as the underlying cause of this protection."

The scientist explained that although the study was based on mice, it still strengthened prior researches which state that doing regular exercise can increase the production of natural killer cells in humans.