Think of Exercise as a Vaccine for Your Body

Medscape

4 days ago

This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Let's talk today about how exercise can be viewed as a type of vaccine.
With a traditional vaccine, there is a controlled exposure to something harmful, which is typically a viral particle. That exposure, though, allows the immune system to be prepared to deal with that virus if it sees it again later on.
Exercise also has the appearance of harm on the surface. It doesn't always feel good in the moment. The whole body is working harder to meet the demands of the exercise. As a result of that extra stress during the exercise activity, the body is then better prepared to deal with stress that can occur from disease processes later on.
As a result of the aging process,organ systems are going to decline a little bit in function, and exercise is the best way to combat those declines. Let's think about something like pneumonia, where somebody might have a fever; they're going to be breathing heavy, and their heart's going to be working harder. For someone who's been exercising on a regular basis, their organ systems are better prepared to meet the higher demands associated with a disease process such as pneumonia.
In contrast, for someone who has not been exercising frequently, their organ systems have declined in function, and then as a result, they're more likely to be overwhelmed during the disease process. Someone might need medications to support their blood pressure during a pneumonia situation. Someone else might need a mechanical ventilator.
In this way, you could view exercise as training for the worst day of your life from a medical perspective. You want to make sure your organs are equipped to deal with stress when it's occurring in an uncontrolled environment, like from an infection such as pneumonia.
Vaccines may be a controversial topic for some, but I think exercise is one type of vaccine whose benefits we can all agree upon.