ISU researchers say 90 minutes of exercise right after flu, COVID-19 vaccines may help boost the shots' benefits
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Getting some exercise after a shot against COVID-19 or influenza might help people's bodies better learn to fight the diseases, Iowa State University researchers have found.
The lead researcher cautioned, however, that exercise alone — without vaccination — is not enough of a defense against COVID-19.
Marian Kohut, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State, said exercise and other healthy habits don't allow our immune systems to build "memory" against diseases — antibodies and cells that recognize and attack intruders such as viruses.
"There are definitely benefits due to exercise within the respiratory tract that can help minimize the severity of viral infection," Kohut said, but added exercise can neither create antibodies nor associated cells — only previous exposure to a virus or a vaccine can do that.
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What Kohut and a team of researchers published in a paper in the journal "Brain, Behavior, and Immunity" is a finding on what 90 minutes of light- to moderate-intensity exercise — on a stationary bike, walking or jogging — can do if someone works out starting 15 to 30 minutes after getting a flu shot or their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
Limitations and possibilities of the study and future studies
What the researchers found in humans and mice is that the exercise correlated with a higher level of antibodies being produced four weeks after the shots. People were asked not to exercise after their second dose of the Pfizer shots.
"It was challenging to find participants in early days of the pandemic when vaccines were in scarce supply," Kohut said — meaning there weren't enough people to also look at the effects of exercise after the second shot.
Kohut and the team — including postdoctoral researcher Tyanez Jones, graduate assistant Jessica Alley and then-graduate student Justus Hallam — collected blood samples at points before and after vaccination, including six months later.
That means they have samples to analyze to look at whether the exercise benefits last long-term. There's also a study for COVID-19 booster shots under way — which needs more participants — but Kohut said it will probably be at least the summer before an analysis has been run on all samples.
The limited number of people in the first study also meant the team could not look at comparing the effects of exercise after a single dose COVID-19 vaccine such as Johnson & Johnson's shot, but Kohut said the booster study will also include people who may have originally gotten the Johnson & Johnson shot and then received an mRNA-based booster later.
There would also need to be more participants to further study the window of time between getting vaccinated and then exercising — whether waiting more or less time would be as effective.
Kohut said researchers at times mapped out safe walking or jogging routes at different vaccination sites around Story County, "And yes, it could be worth considering administering vaccines in a location near a park or other safe exercise area. In the initial study, we exercised outdoors to reduce risk of COVID-19 infection for both participants and research personnel."
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Researchers aren't yet sure why exercise immediately post-vaccination seems to lead to the benefits it has, but the findings seem to apply to people across a range of fitness levels, according to a university news release. About half the people in the study were overweight or obese — which puts people at a higher risk of severe disease from COVID-19 — and during the 90 minutes of exercise, maintaining a heart rate of 120 to 140 beats per minute was more important than distance.
As of last week, approximately 62% of people in Story County had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Iowa Department of Public Health. The data showed 68% of people in the county have received at least one dose.
Kohut said people interested in participating in the booster study can email her at mkohut@iastate.edu or Jones at tcjones@iastate.edu
Phillip Sitter covers education for the Ames Tribune, including Iowa State University and PreK-12 schools in Ames and elsewhere in Story County. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com. He is on Twitter @pslifeisabeauty.
This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Exercise after flu or COVID shots may boost vaccines' benefits
