Fitness Friday

Exercise Helps Protect Smokers From Increased Susceptibility to Muscle Loss

A recent study conducted by the American Physiological Society has found that exercise may help smokers from the muscle loss and inflammation that they are more susceptible to due to their smoking habit.

 Getting people to stop smoking has long been a priority of many major health organizations ever since tobacco groups have had to acknowledge that their product causes harm to their users. The habit most noticeably affects users' cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological health, but what many do not know is that it also affects users' musculoskeletal health as well. For those that hit the gym and are smokers, the lack of oxygen available to the muscles that desperately need it during workouts hinders muscle growth. Not only does lack of oxygen affect this possible muscle growth, but the lack of testosterone also hinders any chance of reaching your true summer body potential. However, for those that do not workout regularly, the risk for muscle loss is even greater.

A team of German researchers have found that inflammation that begins in the pulmonary system due to smoking, can "spill over" into the circulatory system and negatively affect muscle and organ function. The inflammation negatively interacts with protein pathways in the body causing muscle to break down faster than it can grow leading to a condition called 'wasting atrophy'. The German researchers reached this conclusion by studying markers of inflammation in the blood and muscle fibers of two groups of mice that were exposed to cigarette smoke on  along-term basis. One group exercised everyday for eight weeks on a treadmill while the other group did not, and results were compared to mice who were not exposed to a long-term smoke environment. There was significant improvement in regards to biomarkers for inflammation in the exercise group compared to the smoking non-exercise group, however both groups had increased inflammation markers compared to their non-smoking counterparts. The study did reveal, however, that exercise did decrease some muscle fiber density decrease in the long-term smoking groups, leading to the conclusion that consistent exercise in smokers may at least greatly reduce the risk of developing 'wasting atrophy'.