Research: Study finds weightlifting boosts mood, lowers inflammation in women
Weightlifting can make women feel more energetic and lower inflammation—all while maintaining the integrity of the body’s blood-brain interface, according to a new study from the UGA Mary Frances Early College of Education.
Led by post-doctoral researcher David Diggs and kinesiology professor Patrick O’Connor, the study focused on how high-intensity resistance exercise, specifically weightlifting, impacts mood, inflammation, and brain health in both trained and untrained women.
“Our well controlled experiment showed that a single bout of high intensity resistance exercise does not increase S100β in healthy young adult women,” said O’Connor. “This implies that the blood-brain interface is still doing what it should do, which is to keep things that are supposed to stay in the brain, in the brain, and to block potentially harmful molecules that might cause problems out of the brain.”