Lower Body fat and immunity

kapoorpk

So, there is some chat around lower body fat reduces body's immunity to fight illness? A quick survey, especially with those that have successfully lowered body fat in low teens, if that is true? Do those that have actually achieved low BF% experience any higher susceptibility to illness? I thought, a healthier and fitter body strengthened one's immunity regardless of body fat%.

What has been your experience?

kapoorpk

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mustgetmuscles1

I have not personally noticed any change in immunity levels when got down to about 12%. That is really not that low though. Problems may come up with lower body fat levels or it may be the lower calories that cause the immunity problems.

Some people go pretty extreme on cutting calories to achieve low body fat levels. It would be interested to see what others have to say on this.

My body just likes to be around 14%. When I try to go below that the weight loss really slows down, my energy levels drop, weights seems heavier, I get cranky and so on. I could believe that a lower immune system could happen if I really pushed it lower. I am sure there is probably some research on this somewhere.

omma_to_3

I don't have a low BF but I've noticed that when I'm overtraining I get sick more often. I've been running more lately and yup, getting sick again. I used to never get sick. I find it highly annoying.

ElliottTN

I'm pretty sure we are using the word immunity wrong here but I get what you are saying. I'm not there yet but the plan is to get to 10% and re-evaluate if going lower is worth it and I've definitely read some people saying that was an issue when they were there so it is going to be on my radar. I think that it would make sense since your body is well below what it is suppossed to naturally be at that point. I've read that the people who go elbow 10 constantly feel like crap overall though as well making it even harder to maintain.

BinaryPulsar

I don't have a super low bodyfat (for a competition), but my bodyfat is pretty low and I am also at a low weight. I appear to have a stronger immune system than others. Everyone in my family (husband and kids) have been catching everything and having lingering colds that don't go away, and even though I am fully immersed in this with them (and obviously very close with my husband), I have not caught a single thing. Even when they cough and sneeze on me and stuff like that. And I also dance with little babies and toddlers, and still do not catch a single thing.

kapoorpk

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cafeaulait7

Really low body fat might not be as healthy as a minimum amount, particularly for women. The only time mine was really low, I had an active immune-system disease, so I'm not help with anecdotal evidence But I do think there is probably a healthiest distribution that is not linear. Too low or too high is probably less healthy, as with a lot of things involving the body, imho.

There's a big study that found that a small thigh circumference was correlated with bad health outcomes even after controlling for most of what you'd want controlled. If anyone is interested, I'll dig it up. It didn't find that smaller was always worse than bigger, of course, but it found a circumference under which serious adverse outcomes went up. There was another circumference over which adverse outcomes went up, as we already probably knew

millerll

I believe this could be due to stress. It's not the low body fat, per se, that lowers immunity, rather the stress the body is under. Most people at low body fat levels are both eating at a deficit and training pretty hard. This puts a lot of stress on the body, and I think this stress can lower the immune response.