Move It & Lose It with Professor Trim

Fighting colds with exercise

Dr Garry Egger aka Prof Trim

If you have diabetes and are more prone to colds and flu, here’s another way to protect yourself during cold and flu season. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle (American Journal of Medicine, October 2006) found post-menopausal women who work out regularly seem to catch about half the colds of those who don’t. Over 12 months, 115 overweight women either participated in a moderate exercise program – 45 minutes a day, five days a week, mostly brisk walking, or they took part in 45-minute stretching sessions once a week. In the final three months of the study, the risk of colds was three times higher in the stretchers than the exercisers. An even more positive side of exercise for people with diabetes is that it tends to ‘soak up’ blood glucose to be used in muscular contractions and therefore reduces the cause of the problem, i.e. high blood glucose.

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