Inflammation may drive heart effects of fitness and obesity

"The benefits of physical fitness and the hazards of obesity may result in part from opposing effects on systemic inflammation, investigators suggested. Fitness had an inverse association with total white blood cell count and white cell subfraction concentrations whereas a higher body mass index correlated with higher white cell levels, Timothy Church, M.D., Ph.D., of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, and colleagues reported online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The findings add to those from a previous study showing similar associations among fitness, fatness, and total white cell count" - MedPage Today