AJM Theme Issue: Infectious Disease
Clinical research study
Moderate-Intensity Exercise Reduces the Incidence of Colds Among Postmenopausal Women

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2006.06.033Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

Our aim was to assess the effect of a moderate-intensity, year-long exercise program on the risk of colds and other upper respiratory tract infections in postmenopausal women.

Subjects

A total of 115 overweight and obese, sedentary, postmenopausal women in the Seattle area participated.

Methods

Participants were randomly assigned to the moderate-intensity exercise group or the control group. The intervention consisted of 45 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise 5 days per week for 12 months. Control participants attended once-weekly, 45-minute stretching sessions. Questionnaires asking about upper respiratory tract infections in the previous 3 months were administered quarterly during the course of the year-long trial. Poisson regression was used to estimate the effect of exercise on colds and other upper respiratory tract infections.

Results

Over 12 months, the risk of colds decreased in exercisers relative to stretchers (P = .02): In the final 3 months of the study, the risk of colds in stretchers was more than threefold that of exercisers (P = .03). Risk of upper respiratory tract infections overall did not differ (P = .16), yet may have been biased by differential proportions of influenza vaccinations in the intervention and control groups.

Conclusions

This study suggests that 1 year of moderate-intensity exercise training can reduce the incidence of colds among postmenopausal women. These findings are of public health relevance and add a new facet to the growing literature on the health benefits of moderate exercise.

Section snippets

Methods

Participants were enrolled in a randomized trial of Seattle-area, overweight/obese, nonsmoking, sedentary, postmenopausal women,13 recruited between 1998 and 2000, who met eligibility criteria for a study of the exercise effect on immune function (n = 115, described in detail in Shade et al.14). The exercise prescription consisted of at least 45 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise 5 days per week for 12 months (for details, see Irwin et al.15). Control participants attended once-weekly,

Results

Exercisers and stretching controls were comparable at baseline on key demographic variables and self-reported colds and other upper respiratory tract infection episodes (Table 1). On average, study participants were 61 years old and had a body mass index of 30 kg/m2. Intervention participants exercised an average of 3.8 days/week, for a total of 166 minutes/week, meeting 85% of their exercise time goal. Exercisers wore heart-rate monitors and showed significant increases in cardiopulmonary

Discussion

The results from this randomized, controlled trial show that moderate-intensity exercise training over the course of 1 year can reduce the incidence of colds among postmenopausal, nonsmoking, previously sedentary women. The lack of effect on upper respiratory tract infections overall (which included flu episodes) may be because more stretchers than exercisers were vaccinated against influenza in the 6 months before baseline. Further, more stretchers (42%) than exercisers (23%) reported

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    This study was supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) (R01 CA 69334). Ms. Chubak was supported by grant T32 CA09168 from the NCI. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NCI or National Institutes of Health. Dr. Wener was supported in part by the University of Washington Clinical Nutrition Research Grant (DK35816).

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