Eur J Appl Physiol (1996) 73:130-135 © Springer-Verlag 1996 C. Le Page • S. Bourdoulous • E. B~raud P.O. Couraud • M. Rieu • A. Ferry Effect of physical exercise on adoptive experimental auto-immune encephalomyelitis in rats Accepted: 29 August 1995 Abstract The aim of the study was to determine whether different programmes of exercise influence ad- optive monophasic experimental auto-immune en- cephalomyelitis (adoptive EAE), a paralytic disease me- diated by T-cells. Adoptive EAE was induced by the transfer of activated encephalitogenic T-lymphocytes into syngeneic recipients (Lewis rats, n = 85) and its development was followed by two independent ob- servers. The results showed that 2 days of severe exer- cise (250 and 300 min) performed after the adoptive transfer of EAE slightly delayed the onset of the disease (P <0.008) and the day of its maximal severity (P < 0.016) without affecting the overall severity of the disease. When this programme of exercise was per- formed before the cell transfer, it had no effect (P > 0.05). Two more moderate exercise programmes (5 x 120 min of running at constant speed or 5 x 60 min of running at variable speed, 5 consecutive days) per- formed between the adoptive transfer and the onset of the disease did not modify the development of the clinical signs of adoptive EAE (P > 0.05). These results showed that severe exercise slightly influenced the effec- tor phase of monophasic EAE and confirmed that A. Ferry (Z~). C. Le Page. M. Rieu Laboratoire de Physiologie des Adaptations, Facult+ de M6decine Cochin Port-Royal, Universit6 Paris V, 24 rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques, F-75014, Paris, France S. Bourdoulous • P.O. Couraud Laboratoire d'Immuno-Pharmacologie Mol6culaire, Unit~ Propre de Recherche 415, Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Universit6 Paris VII, Paris, France E. B6raud Laboratoire d'Immunologie, Universit6 de M6decine, Marseille, France A. Ferry Unitb de Formation et de Recherche en Sciences et Techniques des Activit6s Physiques et Sportives, Universit6 Paris V, Paris, France physical exercise performed before the onset of experi- mental auto-immune diseases did not exacerbate the clinical signs. Key words Experimental auto-immune encepha- lomyelitis- T-cells • Rat' Auto-immunity- Exercise Introduction Little attention has been paid to the inter-relationship between exercise and auto-immune responses. For many years, patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or multiple sclerosis (MS), which are T-cell-mediated auto-immune diseases affecting joints or the central nervous system, have been denied exercise to prevent exacerbation (Baslund et al. 1993; Ponichtera-Mulcare 1993). It is now believed that moderate exercise has minimized the deconditioning process, improving skel- etal muscle function and maintaining an optimal level of physical function (Rosenthal and Scheinberg 1990; Panush and Inzinna 1994). However, information regarding the beneficial or detrimental influence of physical activity on immune parameters and clinical signs of these patients has been found to be very limited (Lyngberg et al. 1988, 1991; Baslund et al. 1993). Acute moderate exercise by pa- tients with RA has been shown to increase in vitro natural killer cell activity during exercise, whereas the in vitro lymphocyte proliferative response has been found to be enhanced 2 h post-exercise (Lyngberg et al. 1991). It has been shown that physical training has no effect on the number and in vitro functions of blood immunocompetent cells in patients with RA (Baslund et al. 1993). With regard to clinical signs, Lyngberg et al. (1988) have shown that a regime of graduated pro- gressive physical training resulted in more than a 35% decrease in the number of swollen joints in 18 RA patients with moderately active disease.