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Short bouts of walking attenuates the response of IL-8 to prolonged sitting in healthy adults

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Abstract

Purpose

Experimental studies have shown that prolonged sitting for 2–8 h can cause changes to vascular and metabolic markers; the response of pro-inflammatory cytokines is relatively unexplored. The purpose of this study is to determine the response of interleukin-8 (IL-8) to prolonged and interrupted sitting.

Methods

Healthy participants (n = 24, 21.1 years ± 2.2, 50% female) completed a prolonged sitting session (4 h) and an interrupted sitting session (4 h of sitting with 3 min of walking at 60%HRmax, every 30 min) in random order. Saliva and capillary plasma were collected at the beginning (T1) and at the end of each session (T2).

Results

Salivary concentrations of IL-8 increased during the prolonged (T1 median: 22.09 pg/mL, T2 median: 86.18 pg/mL; p =  < 0.01, ES − 0.55) and interrupted (T1 median: 22.09 pg/mL, T2 median: 51.99 pg/mL; p = 0.021, ES − 0.34) sessions; however, the increase during interrupted sitting was lower (PS median: 134.4%, range: − 43.96 to 1115.69 and IS median: 50.8%, range: − 75.5 to 356.35; p = 0.011, ES − 0.53). In the sub-sample of males, salivary IL-8 did not increase in the interrupted session (T1 median: 22.09, range: 3.496–699.12, and T2 median: 24.96, range: 5.11–533.5, p =  > 0.05, ES − 0.16). No significant findings were observed for IL-8 in the plasma.

Conclusion

Prolonged sitting appears to increase concentrations of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-8 while interrupting this sitting with short bouts of walking blunts this response. Sex appears to moderate this relationship; however, there appears to be a large amount of individual variability.

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Data availability

The data generated during the current study are not publicly available due to research ethics restrictions, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

HR:

Heart rate

IL:

Interleukin

IS:

Interrupted sitting

PS:

Prolonged sitting

VO2max:

Maximal aerobic capacity

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Funding

This work was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in Canada (DDG-2021–00007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health Sciences (Kinesiology), University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, ON, L1G 0C5, Canada

    Nicholas O’Rourke, Emmeline Meens-Miller & Shilpa Dogra

  2. Faculty of Science (Biology), University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, ON, L1G 0C5, Canada

    Michael Jeffrey, Lin Saleem & Julia Green-Johnson

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  1. Nicholas O’Rourke
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  2. Emmeline Meens-Miller
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  3. Michael Jeffrey
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Contributions

NOR: conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft, visualization; EM-M: conceptualization, investigation, writing—review and editing; MJ: methodology, validation, writing—review and editing; LS: methodology, validation, writing—review and editing; J-GJ: conceptualization, methodology, validation, resources, writing—review and editing; SD: conceptualization, methodology, resources, writing—original draft, writing—review & editing, supervision, funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Shilpa Dogra.

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Communicated by Fabio Fischetti.

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O’Rourke, N., Meens-Miller, E., Jeffrey, M. et al. Short bouts of walking attenuates the response of IL-8 to prolonged sitting in healthy adults. Eur J Appl Physiol 123, 1271–1281 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-023-05153-z

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