A pilot study: the effect of intensity and menstrual cycle phase on exercise-induced leukocytosis in females
Bibliographic record
Abstract
High-intensity exercise increases inflammation and elicits leukocytosis but may also increase infection risk. Interestingly, females have higher cell-mediated immunity than males. Sex hormones fluctuate across the menstrual cycle (MC), and the luteal phase has been linked to a more pro-inflammatory environment than the follicular phase. This study investigated whether white blood cell (WBC) count and WBC differential (i.e., neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils) differed across two MC phases following an acute bout of exercise that varied in intensity. Eight regularly menstruating females (age = 21.6 ± 3.0; BMI = 20.9 ± 4.1 kg/m2) completed a [Formula: see text]peak (37.8 ± 11.0 mL/min/kg) test and two 40 min cycling exercise trials (30 min of moderate intensity (%HRmax = 71.13 ± 8.5, %[Formula: see text]peak = 49.8 ± 21.6) and ∼10 min of high intensity (%HRmax = 93.3 ± 6.7, %[Formula: see text]peak = 75.4 ± 27.6)) 14 ± 2 days apart. Blood samples were taken pre- and post-moderate-intensity exercise (30 min), as well as immediately post-high-intensity exercise (∼40 min). Both moderate- and high-intensity exercise increased WBC counts ( p < 0.01, ( d = 1.11 and 1.34, respectively)). More specifically, neutrophil counts increased following both moderate ( p < 0.05, d = 0.72) and high ( p < 0.01, d = 0.95) exercise intensities. However, lymphocytes ( p < 0.01, d = 1.15) and monocytes ( p < 0.01, d = 0.99) were only elevated following high-intensity exercise. MC phase did not significantly alter WBC counts nor differentials, although there were trends observed towards greater leukocytosis at moderate-intensity exercise during the luteal phase. These results demonstrate that in some cases moderate-intensity exercise increased leukocytosis (in particular, neutrophils), while high-intensity exercise resulted in significant leukocytosis primarily as a result of increased neutrophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes. Future research should investigate this relationship in a larger sample observing inflammatory cytokines and WBC function/activity with the inclusion of a group in the early follicular phase.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".