Physical Exercise and Metabolic Reprogramming

In this chapter, we discuss the effects of acute and chronic exercise in metabolic reprograming. The exercise causes considerable systemic disturbance in the homeostasis. However, exercise increases the blood flow and nutrient delivery to the skeletal muscle to supply the energy substrate and oxygen via sustained muscle contraction. The disruption in homeostasis is proportional to the skeletal muscle mass involved in exercise as well as the intensity and duration of exercise. Thus, different types of cells undergo metabolic reprograming for adaptation to exercise. This adaptation starts after one bout of exercise, with increased mRNA expression to supply the new challenges to cells; however, the effects of adaptive reprograming are slow, and it is achieved with continuous exercise training. We focused on the skeletal muscle, adipose tissue, and immune cells adaptations induced by acute and chronic exercises. Exercise training induces an anti-inflammatory milieu and improves cellular metabolism; thus, as we discuss in the following sections, training is an excellent non-pharmacological tool in the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases.