Physical exercise after taking the vaccine against covid increases immunity

With just 45 minutes of exercise, the findings point out that it didn’t increase the participants’ antibody levels. (Credit: Playback/Pixabay)

Light-to-moderate physical exercise for 90 minutes directly after the Covid-19 vaccine can provide an extra immune boost, researchers at Iowa State University in the United States said in a recently published study.

The different participants were put on a stationary bike or took a brisk walk for an hour and a half after receiving the injection, which made them produce more antibodies over the next four weeks compared to participants who sat or continued their daily routine. The same results were recorded in tests performed on laboratory rats on treadmills.

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Antibodies are essentially the body’s line of defense against viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites. Vaccines help the immune system learn to identify something foreign and respond by strengthening the body’s defenses, including an increase in antibodies. “Our preliminary results are the first to demonstrate that a specific amount of exercise can increase the body’s antibody response to the Pfizer vaccine and two influenza vaccines,” said kinesiology professor Marian Kohut, lead author of the study published in the journal scientific research ‘Brain, Behavior, and Immunity’.

The researchers said the findings could directly benefit people with a variety of fitness levels – nearly half of the participants had a BMI (body mass index) in the overweight or obese category. In the study, the researchers also tested whether participants could get the same antibody boost from just 45 minutes of exercise, but the findings suggest that a shorter workout did not increase the participants’ antibody levels.

As for why prolonged, mild-to-moderate-intensity exercise can improve the body’s immune response, Kohut said there are several reasons: Physical work increases blood and lymph flow, which helps to circulate immune cells. As these cells move through the body, they are more likely to detect something foreign. “There are so many changes that occur when we exercise – metabolic, biochemical, circulatory. So there is likely a combination of factors that contribute to the antibody response that we found in our study,” explained Kohut.