Daily HealthBeat Tip

Walking away from colds

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

If you could just walk away from getting a cold, would you do it? Researchers think it can be done.

Neli Ulrich at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle looked at women who took up exercise – mostly brisk walks of 30 minutes a day, five days a week. She compared exercisers with women who only stretched:

"Over the course of our year-long study, the exercisers were only about half as likely to get a cold as the stretchers. And that effect was strongest in the final three months, where the difference was about three-fold." (12 seconds)

Ulrich thinks moderate exercise strengthens the body's ability to beat back colds. She says it's another reason to be active.

The study in the American Journal of Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: December 1, 2006

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