The Relationship between Exercise and Inflammation

Mark Sisson discusses the relationship between exercise and inflammation and what it means for your workouts.

Since we’ve been on an inflammation kick the past couple weeks, I figured I’d start covering some of the areas of health and lifestyle that interact with inflammation. That doesn’t exactly narrow things down, seeing as how inflammation is involved in just about everything, but it does give me plenty of things to discuss. Today’s topic, exercise, was a little tricky, because the relationship between exercise and inflammation is anything but straightforward, seemingly fraught with inconsistencies and facts that appear to contradict one another. Exercise reduces inflammation, but it also increases it. And depending on the context, this increased inflammation due to exercise is either a good thing or a bad thing.

Sound confusing?

See for yourself. Study after study (epidemiological and clinical alike) shows that extended exercise programs generally reduce markers of inflammation (like C-reactive protein) over the long-term: Read more

Inflammation: A Symptom of All Disease?

Inflammation is a symptom of all disease, says Margaret Durst. It's big trouble, but you can outsmart it.

Chronic inflammation is a common symptom in most degenerative diseases. These include certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol, chronic obesity, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Inflammation is a natural response of the body to injury. Think of inflammation in relation to the swelling around a sprained ankle. The body handles this injury by sending certain chemicals to the area to start tissue repair. On the surface, this looks like swelling, but underneath the skin, much is going on to repair the damage and restore health to the ankle. Read more