Mackinnon, L T · International journal of sports medicine · 1998 · DOI
This editorial discusses how exercise affects the immune system and raises important questions for future research. It explores whether athletes' bodies are actually fighting infections less effectively, whether reducing certain immune responses might sometimes be helpful, and how exercise training might help people with conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome improve their immune function.
For ME/CFS patients and researchers, this editorial is significant because it explicitly identifies chronic fatigue syndrome as a condition where exercise training may have immunotherapeutic potential, and it highlights the need to understand how exercise influences immune communication and tolerance. It suggests that moderate, carefully-calibrated exercise might help restore immune function in ME/CFS, though it also raises cautionary questions about inflammation and immunosuppression.
This editorial does not provide empirical data and therefore does not prove that exercise training is beneficial or safe for ME/CFS patients. It raises hypothetical questions rather than answering them, and it does not account for post-exertional malaise or the distinct pathophysiology of ME/CFS, which may differ fundamentally from exercise-induced immune changes in healthy athletes.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Mackinnon, L T (1998). Future directions in exercise and immunology: regulation and integration.. International journal of sports medicine. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2007-971993
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-mackinnon-1998-future-directions,
author = {Mackinnon, L T},
title = {Future directions in exercise and immunology: regulation and integration.},
journal = {International journal of sports medicine},
year = {1998},
doi = {10.1055/s-2007-971993},
note = {PubMed: 9722286},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mackinnon-1998-future-directions},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/mackinnon-1998-future-directions
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