Times 2 - UK (2020-10-20)

6 1GT Tuesday October 20 2020 | the times

bodyhealth&soul

Anti-age your immune

system — here’s how

to turn back the clock

Our ability to fight off illness starts declining in our twenties, but you can

reverse the trend with simple diet and exercise changes, says Peta Bee

We know there is a decline with age,

but our immune systems are a bit like

cars, and whether you have a Nissan

or a Ferrari, it is how well you look

after it that makes the difference.”

Daily exercise and immune-

strengthening dietary habits are key to

anti-ageing our immunity. Lord, 63,

acts on her own advice to keep her

immune system youthful. “I run six

mornings a week, with one of those

runs in high-intensity interval training

style,” she says. She also fasts once

a week, drinking only water that day.

“With age, the diversity of our gut

flora reduces, allowing harmful

bacteria to take over,” she says.

“An occasional fast reduces

inflammation and helps the

good bacteria to flourish.”

Here’s what else you can do

to lower your immune age.

Walk 10,000 steps a day

Lord and her colleagues looked

at the effect of daily physical

activity on neutrophil movement,

a type of immune function, in a

group of older adults (average age 67)

for one of their studies. “Neutrophil

movement matters because these cells

are our main defence against bacteria

such as those that cause pneumonia,”

Lord says. “They have to be able to

move from the blood quickly and

efficiently as many bacteria grow

very rapidly and so must be found

and killed quickly.”

For the trial she compared people

who were most active, doing 10,

steps a day or more, with the least

active, who managed 3,000 to 5,000.

“We found that those doing 10,

daily steps had neutrophils that

behaved like those of young adults,”

Lord says. “What we can say is that

3,000 to 5,000 steps a day is not

enough to have an effect on immune

function as we age and 10,000 daily

steps is enough to elicit changes.”

Try HIIT three times a week

Lord is a fan of high-intensity interval

training (HIIT), not least because her

findings suggest it can successfully

slow the ageing of our immune

function. She asked 27 sedentary

middle-aged people to take part in

a short, sharp HIIT class on bikes

three times a week. Each HIIT session

comprised a five-minute warm-up of

low-intensity cycling followed by high-

intensity sprints of between 15 and 60

seconds, interspersed with periods of

“active rest” (45 to 120 seconds) when

the participants pedalled lightly.

The HIIT class produced favourable

changes in immune function,

specifically antimicrobial and bacterial

functions of infection-fighting

neutrophils and monocytes, that

matched the immune gains from

a moderate-intensity continuous

workout (a five-minute warm-up of

low-intensity cycling followed by 30

to 45 minutes of moderate pedalling).

Another trial on 12 older adults with

rheumatoid arthritis showed that

a HIIT walking session three times

a week (involving a five-minute warm-

up and cool-down and a 20-minute

A

s with nearly

everything else to do

with our bodies, the

effectiveness of the

immune system

declines with age.

From our twenties

onwards the body’s

ability to fight infection decreases at

a rate of about 2 to 3 per cent a year,

gradually leaving us more susceptible

to diseases, says Janet Lord, a

professor of immune cell biology

and the director of Birmingham

University’s Institute for Inflammation

and Ageing. But, she says, the speed at

which this happens isn’t unavoidable.

“Ill health should not be an

inevitable part of growing old. By

understanding what happens to

our immune systems as we age,

we can break that link.”

Ageing of the immune system

is accelerated by the usual

baddies: smoking, a sedentary

lifestyle, weight gain and an

unhealthy diet. By improving these

and other factors, you can turn back

the immunity clock. Dr Jenna

Macciochi, a lecturer in immunology

at the University of Sussex and the

author of Immunity: The Science of

Staying Well, says that it is possible

to have the immune function of a

30-year-old in your sixties or seventies

— and vice versa. “There is now data

proving that our immunological age is

not the same as our chronological age.

,

“With a

flora re

bacte

“An

inf

go

t

W

Lo

at t

activ

a type

group of

for one

moveme

tion

d at

ble.

e

ck

gy

e

Do some

resistance

exercises