Effects of exercise on Irisin, BDNF and IL-6 serum levels in patients with progressive multiple sclerosis

Background Clinical studies have suggested beneficial effects of exercise on cognitive function in ageing adults and neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia. Recent work indicates the same for progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), an inflammatory and degenerative disease of the central nervous system (CNS). The biological pathways associated with these effects are however not well understood. Objective In this randomized controlled study, we explored serum levels of the myokine Irisin, the neurotrophin brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) during acute endurance exercise and over the course of a 9-weeks endurance exercise training period in n = 42 patients with progressive MS. Results We detected a significant increase of BDNF levels in progressive MS patients after 30 min of bicycling (p < 0.001). However, there were no significant changes for baseline levels after 22 sessions of training.