Re: Immune system and longer runs

"Joshua Steinberg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:1104588129.2f18a0297398f1a86d8e2cd4fe3a4c26@teranews...

Quoted message said:

Roger Herzler said:

... However, I talked to
another pretty active guy here at work (run, bike, swim, etc.) and he
mentioned that the extra stresses of harder/longer runs can reduce your
immune system's abilities to fight off bugs. Is that the experience of
those here and what do you do to mitigate these added risks?

Not my experience, and I doubt there is much of a medical literature on
the subject to answer the question definitively, so one must rely on
hearsay and logic and personal preference. I'd point out that lotsa folks
ramp up for marathons with many long runs, and yet marathoners are not
dropping like flies, so long runs does not equal weakened health.
-- Josh Steinberg MD, Syracuse

Doc, you might want to read the work of David Nieman out of Appalachian
State. A PubMed search will turn up a lot of papers. Overall, exercise is
good, but there are some detrimental effects on some aspects of the immune
system.

"Joshua Steinberg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

Roger Herzler said:

... However, I talked to
another pretty active guy here at work (run, bike, swim, etc.) and he
mentioned that the extra stresses of harder/longer runs can reduce your
immune system's abilities to fight off bugs. Is that the experience of
those here and what do you do to mitigate these added risks?

Not my experience, and I doubt there is much of a medical literature on
the subject to answer the question definitively, so one must rely on
hearsay and logic and personal preference. I'd point out that lotsa folks
ramp up for marathons with many long runs, and yet marathoners are not
dropping like flies, so long runs does not equal weakened health.
-- Josh Steinberg MD, Syracuse

Josh, as a doc you should know that long runs do indeed supress
the immune system temporarily - any extended physical activity
like that does. And if you are doing them a lot, your immune system
is depressed all the time, without a chance to bounce back. Getting
sick is a common sign of overtraining.

cheers,
--
David (in Hamilton, ON)
www.allfalldown.org
www.absolutelyaccurate.com

Quoted message said:

Josh, as a doc you should know that long runs do indeed supress
the immune system temporarily - any extended physical activity
like that does. And if you are doing them a lot, your immune system
is depressed all the time, without a chance to bounce back. Getting
sick is a common sign of overtraining.

Absolutely true! I used to get ill (colds, sore throat, chest cold, etc) from
overtraining.

Sam said:

"Joshua Steinberg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
... and I doubt there is much of a medical literature on

Quoted message said:

the subject to answer the question definitively, so one must rely on
hearsay and logic and personal preference. I'd point out that lotsa folks
ramp up for marathons with many long runs, and yet marathoners are not
dropping like flies, so long runs does not equal weakened health.
-- Josh Steinberg MD, Syracuse

Doc, you might want to read the work of David Nieman out of Appalachian
State. A PubMed search will turn up a lot of papers. Overall, exercise is
good, but there are some detrimental effects on some aspects of the immune
system.

Sam, basic science "research" on immune response to exercise is out
there, but irrelevant. The original poster doesn't care about the
research evidence reported in the vast majority of hits on PubMed, which
talk about neutrophil migration rates, white blood cell demargination,
lysosome superoxide levels, lymphocyte degranulation, and so forth.
People don't give a [censored] about any of the cellular/molecular stuff that
you get on PubMed. People care about exactly what the poster asked, "if
I train for a marathon, will I catch cold/flu/sinusitis/pneumonia, doc?"
And on that question, PubMed has thin, small, weak evidence.

Furthermore, when one searches PubMed, one finds 29% of the relevant
medical literature on a given subject. That fact is from research done
on how well health care professionals do when they consult the medical
literature for research! So please don't look to PubMed as definitive.
It takes a training to know how to consult the medical literature and
it takes a training to know how to read and interpret the medical
literature. Untrained laypersons wade into the swampy thicket of PubMed
at their own peril of being misinformed and confused.

Sorry to take such an authoritative stance. Being a big evidence based
medicine champion teaches me not to trust expert authority figures, and
like Mulder and Fox, I trust no one. So I bristle at my authoritative
stance myself. But I teach and critique this stuff (medical
informatics, medical practice, evidence based medicine) for a living.
(And I have very harsh criticism for my doctor colleagues who do it very
very badly.)

-- Joshua Steinberg MD, Syracuse

Joshua Steinberg said:

Not my experience, and I doubt there is much of a medical literature
on the subject to answer the question definitively, so one must rely
on hearsay and logic and personal preference. I'd point out that
lotsa folks ramp up for marathons with many long runs, and yet
marathoners are not dropping like flies, so long runs does not equal
weakened health.

Joshua:

When training to the brink when in my 30's (95 mpw, 2 speed workouts + a
race weekly + long runs) my principal limiting factor was getting sick, not
getting injured. Usually started with a scratchy throat, then all hell
broke loose. It bothered me because my legs could handle it.

Example: A friend (who later won the western states 100) and I ran separate
10k's in the low 34's as a workout on Saturday, then hammered each other on
a very hilly 21 mile course at a 6:10 pace on Sunday. My most insane
workout ever. We were both sick by Tuesday.

To this day, at age 53, a scratchy throat is a sign that I need to back off
a bit. Marty Liquori mentioned this in his "Guide for the Elite Runner".

-- Dan

Josh,
You seem big on knocking Pubmed, and wether it's justified or not I do
not know, but I do know that overtraining always produced an infection
of one kind or another, and often these were called "unusual"
infections. It was the one limiting factor in my training. After many
years it no longer is.

Gosh Josh,

Just when I thought I had a real shot at winning Most Sanctimonious
[censored] of rec.running for 2005, you return and [censored] victory from my
hands and it's only the first day of the year!

Congratulations, I can only slump back in awe and applaud a true
champion.

I knew I shouldn't have slept through those "God Really Wanted To Be A
Doctor" lectures. Oh well, there's always alt.coffee.

Joshua Steinberg said:

Sam said:

"Joshua Steinberg" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
... and I doubt there is much of a medical literature on

Quoted message said:

the subject to answer the question definitively, so one must rely on
hearsay and logic and personal preference. I'd point out that lotsa folks
ramp up for marathons with many long runs, and yet marathoners are not
dropping like flies, so long runs does not equal weakened health.
-- Josh Steinberg MD, Syracuse

Doc, you might want to read the work of David Nieman out of Appalachian
State. A PubMed search will turn up a lot of papers. Overall, exercise is
good, but there are some detrimental effects on some aspects of the immune
system.

Sam, basic science "research" on immune response to exercise is out
there, but irrelevant. The original poster doesn't care about the
research evidence reported in the vast majority of hits on PubMed, which
talk about neutrophil migration rates, white blood cell demargination,
lysosome superoxide levels, lymphocyte degranulation, and so forth.
People don't give a [censored] about any of the cellular/molecular stuff that
you get on PubMed. People care about exactly what the poster asked, "if
I train for a marathon, will I catch cold/flu/sinusitis/pneumonia, doc?"
And on that question, PubMed has thin, small, weak evidence.

Furthermore, when one searches PubMed, one finds 29% of the relevant
medical literature on a given subject. That fact is from research done
on how well health care professionals do when they consult the medical
literature for research! So please don't look to PubMed as definitive.
It takes a training to know how to consult the medical literature and
it takes a training to know how to read and interpret the medical
literature. Untrained laypersons wade into the swampy thicket of PubMed
at their own peril of being misinformed and confused.

Sorry to take such an authoritative stance. Being a big evidence based
medicine champion teaches me not to trust expert authority figures, and
like Mulder and Fox, I trust no one. So I bristle at my authoritative
stance myself. But I teach and critique this stuff (medical
informatics, medical practice, evidence based medicine) for a living.
(And I have very harsh criticism for my doctor colleagues who do it very
very badly.)

-- Joshua Steinberg MD, Syracuse