Holding up your skeletal system, keeping you mobile, even regulating your metabolism... your muscles are busy.
Now researchers are proposing that muscles also work as an endocrine gland, producing hormone-like substances that fight inflammation.
Inflammation seems to be the common denominator in just about every chronic disease - from diabetes and cardiovascular disease to fibromyalgia and alzheimer's disease. It's one way your immune system fights off invading pathogens and repairs tissue damage. It works as a first response to trouble in your body, and as a signal, calling other body sytems to the scene for back-up. The trouble in chronic diseases, however, is that inflammation is on duty 24/7. Instead of doing its job and clearing out, the inflammation stays - either because it is still receiving the message from damaged or dying cells that it's needed, or because of some faulty physiological feedback mechanism - inflammation settles in for the long term like a house guest who just won't take a hint.
Scientists have now shown that muscles secrete an anti-inflammatory substance during excercise. When a muscle contracts, it releases a peptide called a myokine (myo=muscle, kine=movement) that reduces inflammation.
Could this be why exercise, even in small quantitites, helps us feel 'better,' and seems to reduce pain like backaches and headaches?
In this review, reseachers cite a study showing that exercise and modified diet reduced the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 58 percent, and another study showing a 35 percent reduction in mortality associated with cardiovascular disease, attributable to exercise alone.
