ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the most commonly used measures of immune function and discuss the immune response to short-term exercise which is presented as bouts of exercise that are 60 min or less in duration. Unlike the general processes of innate immunity, the processes of acquired immunity are directed at specific disease organisms. Much of the human body’s ability to resist almost all types of invading organisms or toxins is dependent upon acquired immunity. Short-term exercise results in an increase in the number of lymphocytes and neutrophils in peripheral blood sampled immediately following exercise. In blood samples taken immediately after exercise, earlier investigators attributed the lymphocytosis to increased numbers of both T-cells and B-cells. If blood samples are taken soon after exercise and results are expressed in relative terms, the literature suggests that a single bout of short-term exercise is accompanied by some transient degree of suppressed lymphocyte proliferation in response to a nonspecific mitogen.
