Timothy M. Kistner, Anna Tavormina, Daniel E. Lieberman
During vigorous physical activity, contracting muscles secrete a variety of immunomodulatory and metabolic factors called myokines that perform a variety of functions. Foremost among these is interleukin 6 (IL-6), which increases fatty acid mobilization and stimulates anti-inflammatory cytokine release. Despite being well characterized in vigorous exercise contexts, whether IL-6 is secreted during moderate-intensity activities such as walking is unclear. This is especially pertinent as regular walking is one of the oldest and most common forms of physical activity and comes with a variety of health benefits, which may be coordinated in part by IL-6 signaling. To test the hypothesis that IL-6 release occurs during evolutionarily normal physical activity contexts like long distance walking, we performed a dose–response experiment to test the effect of walking duration on IL-6 secretion. Thirteen participants completed four moderate-intensity walking trials (55% HRmax) of varying durations (30 min, 1 h, 2 h, and 3 h) in a randomized order with intervening washout periods of at least 1 week. Using a linear mixed effects model, we found that IL-6 levels modestly increased during only the 2 h and 3 h walking trials. These results suggest that small frequent increases in IL-6 signaling may be an important mechanism underlying the health benefits of regular walking. Furthermore, this finding raises the possibility that IL-6 secretion is an adaptation to fuel physical activity, especially during periods of negative energy balance.
{"title":"Myokine secretion during moderate-intensity physical activity: Dose–response of interleukin 6 to walking duration","authors":"Timothy M. Kistner, Anna Tavormina, Daniel E. Lieberman","doi":"10.1002/ajhb.24131","DOIUrl":"10.1002/ajhb.24131","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During vigorous physical activity, contracting muscles secrete a variety of immunomodulatory and metabolic factors called myokines that perform a variety of functions. Foremost among these is interleukin 6 (IL-6), which increases fatty acid mobilization and stimulates anti-inflammatory cytokine release. Despite being well characterized in vigorous exercise contexts, whether IL-6 is secreted during moderate-intensity activities such as walking is unclear. This is especially pertinent as regular walking is one of the oldest and most common forms of physical activity and comes with a variety of health benefits, which may be coordinated in part by IL-6 signaling. To test the hypothesis that IL-6 release occurs during evolutionarily normal physical activity contexts like long distance walking, we performed a dose–response experiment to test the effect of walking duration on IL-6 secretion. Thirteen participants completed four moderate-intensity walking trials (55% HR<sub>max</sub>) of varying durations (30 min, 1 h, 2 h, and 3 h) in a randomized order with intervening washout periods of at least 1 week. Using a linear mixed effects model, we found that IL-6 levels modestly increased during only the 2 h and 3 h walking trials. These results suggest that small frequent increases in IL-6 signaling may be an important mechanism underlying the health benefits of regular walking. Furthermore, this finding raises the possibility that IL-6 secretion is an adaptation to fuel physical activity, especially during periods of negative energy balance.</p>","PeriodicalId":50809,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Human Biology","volume":"36 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141731544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}