CytoHealth - A Study of the Inflammatory Response to Exercise

By measuring cytokines and chemokines in healthy volunteers of a range of ages and physical fitness, the researchers want to establish how the body's immune system responds to undergoing a single, short test of maximal effort exercise. There is limited research looking at fitness testing and the immune system, particularly in less fit individuals and women. This may not only reveal more about how people respond to the stress of very hard exercise, but it has strong relevance to patients who are undergoing major cancer operations. The researchers know that better fitness improves the patients chances of doing well after a cancer operation, and so patients undergo an exercise test to assess their fitness before a cancer operation. The researchers use this information to guide their treatment during and after their operation. What the researchers do not know is how the immune system responds to the exercise test and how this might be reflected in how they do after the operation. By undertaking this study, in healthy volunteers, the researchers will not only gain an understanding of how best to assess the immune system during exercise testing, and the logistics of doing this, but it will provide us data that the researchers can compare to cancer patients collected in separate, future study. The potential implication being that information about the immune system could be assessed during exercise testing and enhance how the researchers manage those individuals during and after an operation, potentially improving their outcomes. To provide a good representation of the general adult population, the researchers will recruit volunteers from two universities and staff at a hospital. Individuals invited to participate will have a blood test to assess their levels of cytokines and chemokines before and after they complete an exercise test. The exercise test will be delivered at one site only, which is a university laboratory.