Researchers Find Link Between Exercise and Healing Damaged Skin Tissue

We are close to having another reason to get moderate exercise, especially as we grow older. Researchers have already demonstrated that exercise has many benefits, from improving our immune responses to having better brain functioning. In a recent press release, they've announced yet another benefit from exercising.

This study involved exercise and mice, but the application to humans is easy, said researchers. Moderate exercise helps reduce inflammation when someone has skin tissues that have been damaged, and speeds up their recovery, according to researchers at the University of Illinois.

In a nutshell researchers theorize that moderate exercise causes the body to speed up how the body works. When the body is working quicker, blood circulates at a more rapid pace. This means that blood cells get more nutrition, quicker, than while we are at rest.

As our blood circulation is increased, our cells are able to tackle healing wounds and tissue damage faster, and decrease the amount of inflammation that exists.

Of course, the actual biological process is far more complicated than this scenario, but the core ideas remain the same.

Previous research has linked quicker healing of wounds with exercise, but researchers were unable to ascertain the physiological reasons behind this. The research from the University of Illinois demonstrates a clear association between exercise and less inflammation.

Researchers plan to continue their studies by testing their theories on mice that are also diabetic. It is well known that many diabetics experience difficulties in healing wounds and cuts to their skin.

"There's obviously the financial cost, which is important...the clinical impact of delayed wound healing in the aged population is priced at more than $9 billion per year in the United States. But the personal cost to people with poorly healing wounds is tremendous, because it means not only pain and suffering, but also means they're immobile or their mobility is limited for a period of time. So, faster healing wounds would mean getting them up on their feet again. For people with poorly healing wounds, like diabetics, that's a critical factor," Keylock said

Keylock initially undertook this study while he was working on his doctoral studies at the University of Illinois. He is now a professor of kinesiology at Bowling Green State University.

This study has been published in the journal, The American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Source:
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/07/1128wound.html