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Departments of 1 Psychology, 2 Internal Medicine, 3 Psychiatry, 4 Molecular Virology, Immunology, and Medical Genetics
5 Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research; and 6 Comprehensive Cancer Center; The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Address correspondence to Charles F. Emery, PhD, Departments of Psychology and Internal Medicine, 1885 Neil Avenue, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: emery.33{at}osu.edu
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Methods. Twenty-eight healthy older adults (mean age 61.0 ± 5.5 years) were assigned randomly to an exercise activity group (n = 13) or to a nonexercise control group (n = 15). One month following baseline randomization, after exercise participants had acclimated to the exercise routine, all participants underwent an experimental wound procedure. Wounds were measured 3 times per week until healed to calculate rate of wound healing. All participants completed assessments of exercise endurance, salivary cortisol, and self-reported stress prior to randomization and at the conclusion of the intervention.
Results. Exercise participants achieved significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, as reflected by increased oxygen consumption (VO2max) and exercise duration. Wound healing occurred at a significantly faster rate in the exercise group [mean = 29.2 (9.0) days] than in the nonexercise group [38.9 (7.4) days; p =.012]. Exercise participants also experienced increased cortisol secretion during stress testing following the intervention. Group differences in wound healing and neuroendocrine responsiveness were found despite low levels of self-reported stress.
Conclusions. A relatively short-term exercise intervention is associated with enhanced rates of wound healing among healthy older adults. Thus, exercise activity may be an important component of health care to promote wound healing.
Health behaviors appear to have an effect on both immune function and wound healing. Among the most commonly studied health behaviors (e.g., smoking, diet, exercise), physical exercise is especially relevant because of its influence on multiple components of the wound-healing system, including associations with immune and endocrine function (10), as well as its effect on psychological stress (11). Thus, it is important to evaluate the influence of exercise on wound healing, neuroendocrine function, and stress among older adults.
Past studies have demonstrated the feasibility of improving exercise endurance and reducing psychological distress of older adults with a relatively brief (1012 week) exercise intervention (11,12). Reduced stress, in turn, has been associated with attenuated cortisol levels (13). Thus, there is evidence that physical exercise is a viable intervention to mitigate the negative effects of age and psychological stress in the wound-healing process. However, no prior study has examined the effect of exercise on wound healing in a laboratory experiment with a controlled exercise intervention. This preliminary study evaluated the influence of exercise on wound healing in a randomized controlled investigation. To address one possible mechanism by which exercise may influence wound healing, the study examined changes in stress as measured both by self-report and via salivary cortisol. It was hypothesized that a 3-month program of aerobic exercise, in comparison to a no-treatment control condition, would be associated with: (a) increased cardiopulmonary endurance, (b) significantly faster healing of a dermal wound, (c) lower resting cortisol levels, (d) an enhanced cortisol response to exercise, and (e) lower self-reported stress.
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Procedures
Participants completed assessments at baseline and after 3 months. Following the baseline assessment, participants were assigned randomly to either a 3-month program of aerobic exercise or to a nonexercise control group. After 1 month, all participants underwent the experimental wound procedure described below but continued in the assigned condition (exercise or nonexercise) for the remaining 2 months of the intervention, until the 3-month assessment. This schedule provided participants with a 1-month lead-in period of exercise prior to the wound procedure so that wound healing would not be confounded by physiological adaptation associated with initiating a program of regular physical exercise.
Aerobic exercise.-- Exercise sessions were conducted 3 days per week for 1 hour each day at the OSU Center for Wellness and Prevention. Based on maximum heart rate (HR) achieved during the baseline exercise test, participants were assigned exercise HR training ranges equivalent to approximately 70% maximum HR. Participants monitored HR via radial pulse and recorded it in daily exercise logs three times during each exercise session. Exercise sessions began with 10 minutes of warm-up floor exercises and stretching, followed by 30 minutes of continuous bicycle ergometry at an intensity sufficient to maintain HR within the assigned training range. Participants then engaged in 15 minutes of brisk walking and/or jogging and arm-strengthening exercise (on an arm ergometer) for 15 minutes. Each exercise session concluded with 5 minutes of cool-down exercises.
Nonexercise control.-- Participants randomized to the nonexercise control group did not receive any form of exercise training and were instructed not to change physical activity habits during the 3-month period. Participants in both groups were asked to maintain their regular dietary habits throughout the duration of the study.
Wound procedure.-- The wound procedure was conducted at the OSU General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) immediately following the 1-month assessment. All participants underwent a low-risk punch biopsy procedure (15) used in dermatological research. A Miltex Instruments kit (York, PA) was used to create a uniform 3.5-mm wound on the back of the nondominant upper arm. The wound was covered immediately with an adhesive bandage for 24 hours, after which no further bandaging was necessary. A high resolution digital camera (Sony Cyber-Shot, DSC-S50; New York, NY) was used to photograph the wound 1 week after the wound procedure. Thereafter, additional photographs were taken 3 days per week until the wound was no longer visible. For each digital photograph, a standard 5-mm black dot was placed next to the wound as a measurement guide. Participants in both the exercise and nonexercise conditions followed the same schedule of wound-measurement photographs.
Measurement of wounds for all participants was conducted using the following procedure. Each wound photograph was scanned into a computer file, and the wound and dot in each photograph were measured on-screen with Canvas 7 (version 7.0.2, 2000; Deneba Systems, Inc., Miami, FL). Wound size was expressed as the ratio of the wound area to the dot area in each photograph. Each wound was measured by two research assistants who were blind to group assignment. Interscorer reliability was excellent (>98%). Wounds were considered healed when the wound-to-dot ratio was less than 10%.
Assessment Procedure
Participants completed comprehensive assessments of exercise endurance, salivary cortisol, and stress at baseline and at the 3-month assessment. All assessments occurred in the morning with participants in a fasting state.
Exercise endurance.-- Participants completed a standard symptom-limited graded exercise treadmill test using a modified Ekelund protocol. Workloads were increased at a rate of approximately 1 metabolic equivalent per minute. Exercise was continued until limited by excessive fatigue and/or shortness of breath. Expired air was collected by mouthpiece for quantification of oxygen consumption (Cardio2; Medgraphics, St. Paul, MN). The electrocardiogram was monitored continuously, and standard limb leads and leads V5 and V6 were recorded initially and after each minute of exercise. Arterial blood pressure was measured by cuff manometry at rest and during each minute of exercise. Exercise training was documented by measuring the duration of the exercise test and maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) during exercise.
Cortisol.-- Salivary samples were collected, and salivary cortisol was assayed using chemiluminescent techniques (8). In addition, participants provided salivary samples on two separate days (4 times each day) during the week following each assessment to provide an indicator of diurnal variation in cortisol and overall cortisol levels associated with the intervention.
Perceived stress.-- The 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; 16) was used to evaluate the degree to which respondents perceived their lives to be stressful (e.g., unpredictable, uncontrollable). Each item is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, and scores may range from 0 to 40. Prior studies have documented adequate reliability and validity of this measure (17).
Data Analysis
The primary mode of data analysis was repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with assessment time (baseline vs 3 months) as a within-subject variable and condition (exercise vs nonexercise) as a between-subject variable. In the presence of a statistically significant Time x Condition interaction, effects of time within condition were evaluated.
| RESULTS |
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Among the 15 participants assigned to the nonexercise condition, 3 dropped out before the study was terminated, leaving 12 control participants with wound-healing data and complete baseline and 3-month assessments, as shown in Figure 1.
Exercise Training/Fitness
Repeated-measures ANOVA of VO2max revealed a significant Time x Condition interaction [F(1,20) = 9.23, p =.007], with exercise participants achieving a significant increase in maximal oxygen consumption after 3 months whereas nonexercise participants experienced no change, as shown in Table 1. Similarly, there was a significant Time x Condition interaction for treadmill exercise time [F(1,20) = 10.99, p =.004], with exercise participants achieving a significant increase in time to maximal performance after 3 months whereas nonexercise participants did not change.
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Wound Healing
Wound-healing data for one participant in each condition was uninterpretable, leaving wound-healing data for 11 participants in each condition. Consistent with the experimental hypotheses, wounds for participants in the exercise condition healed significantly faster [mean = 29.2 (9.0) days; range 1638 days] than those for participants in the nonexercise condition [mean = 38.9 (7.4) days; range 2949 days], as demonstrated by a one-way ANOVA [F(1,20) = 7.64, p =.012]. The condition effect remained significant when hormone-replacement therapy status was statistically controlled via analysis of covariance. There were no complications or infections during the course of wound healing for either group.
Figure 2 indicates the proportion of participants in each condition with healed wounds in weeks 27 following the wound procedure and provides graphic evidence of the more rapid wound-healing rate in the exercise group than in the nonexercise group. As indicated in Figure 2, no participants had healed wounds by week 2, and all participants had healed wounds by week 7. Post hoc chi-square analyses of data for weeks 36 indicated that the proportion of participants with healed wounds at week 4 was significantly greater in the exercise condition than in the nonexercise condition [
2(1) = 8.25, p <.005].
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To evaluate the influence of exercise on cortisol secretion, mean daily cortisol readings were summarized by calculating the area under the curve (18). Repeated-measures ANOVA of the area under the curve at baseline and at 3 months revealed no significant interaction effect.
Stress
Repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that self-reported stress (PSS) did not change as a result of the exercise intervention, as shown in Table 1. However, the mean PSS score for this sample (total score mean = 12.0 ± 7.8) at baseline reflected a very low level of overall distress. Thus, it was unlikely that scores would be affected by the exercise intervention.
| DISCUSSION |
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This sample of older adults was largely healthy and nondistressed. To conduct this initial randomized study, individuals with medical conditions that might negatively influence wound healing were excluded. Thus, generalizability of the results would be limited to healthy older adults. Further research is required to determine the influence of exercise on wound healing in a wider range of older adults including those reporting greater psychological distress. Among distressed older adults, it is likely that distress would be more likely to moderate the influence of exercise on wound healing. Indeed, prior studies have documented an inverse relationship between stress and physical exercise (19), and an attenuating effect of exercise on stress responses among middle-aged and older adults (20,21). In this nonstressed sample of older adults, neuroendocrine changes were associated with differential rates of wound healing. Further investigation is warranted to evaluate additional mechanisms that may contribute to the observed effect of exercise on wound healing, including exercise-related changes in immunologic function (e.g., proinflammatory cytokines; 10) and neuroendocrine function (e.g., growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor; 22,23).
The results of this study provide evidence for the benefit of physical exercise in the wound-healing process among older adults. The wound-healing rate in the nonexercise group (38.9 days) was nearly identical to that of normal control participants (39.3 days) in prior research on wound healing (4), further indicating that the exercise effect observed in the present study truly represents an enhanced rate of wound healing beyond the norm for this age group. This observed enhancement in the rate of wound healing has not been documented previously. Because exercise can be construed as a controllable form of physical stress, the enhanced rate of wound healing in this study is consistent with prior data indicating that hormonal response (cortisol) to stress may serve to facilitate endogenous immune-function processes in the skin (24). From a practical perspective, the results provide empirical support for the relevance of considering exercise activity as a component of medical care among patients who have sustained dermal wounds or who are recovering from surgical procedures.
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We thank Amanda Dillard, Karen Wilson, Ronda Cress, Michelle Huffman, and Meghan Fondow for assistance with exercise supervision, data collection, and data management.
David J. Frid is now with Pfizer, Inc.
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Received December 24, 2004
Accepted February 17, 2005
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