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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Attitude to Exercise Affects Health ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Forcing individuals to exercise may undermine the health benefits of their workouts, one researcher contends. Those forced into exercise may experience more stress, causing "real problems with immune problems and disease," says Dr. Monika Fleshner of the department of kinesiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. However, she believes those exercising by choice "are going to get the full (health) benefit" from that physical activity. Fleshner presented her findings at this week's annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans. She evaluated the immunological responses of two groups of adult male rats: those in the first group were assigned 'forced' treadmill exercise, while those in the other group were allowed to hop on or off rotating 'freewheels' at will. Each rat was then injected with a foreign protein. Fleshner used various tests to determine each rat's immunological response to the injection. According to a University of Colorado report, "Forced exercise resulted in a suppression" of the rodent's immune response, "whereas voluntary exercise resulted in an increase in those responses." Fleshner speculates that the psychological stress inherent in enforced activity may weaken the body's disease-fighting mechanisms. She admits that more study is needed before we can draw firm parallels between rat and human behaviors. But similar results have been found in studies involving military cadets. "Forced exercising in military basic training is a real problem for cadets stress-wise," Fleshner says. "These cadets have problems immunologically, (and) they also show other health-related problems." She adds that many elite athletes are also often found to be "physiologically stressed, and they have real problems with immune problems and disease." Fleshner believes her studies may have the most serious implications for patients recovering from heart attack. These individuals are sometimes "placed on an exercise program that's almost like medicine." The stress engendered by enforced workouts may undermine the intended benefits of these programs, she says. Fleshner has planned further rat-based studies which will look more closely at the interrelationship between psychological control, exercise, and immunological well-being. By E.J. Mundell 1997, Reuters Health eLine <http://www.medscape.com/reuters/fri/t1030-5f.html> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- janet [log in to unmask]