Holidays can help to improve health: Study

London, Oct 2: Holidays are not just for relaxing but can also help to improve your health and should be prescribed for sick people, says a study. According to the study, being in an environment that stimulates curiosity could turbo-charge the immune system, quoted the Daily Mail. For the study, the researchers took mice which were given a two-week stay in a large cage packed with toys and the exciting environment appeared to boost their white blood cells, which fight off infections. "This effect is remarkable because we haven't given them any *****, all we've done is change their housing conditions," said Fulvio D'Acquisto, Professor at Queen Mary University, London. "You could say that we've just put them in their equivalent of a holiday resort for two weeks and let them enjoy their new surroundings," D'Acquisto added. White blood cells are key to auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. The researcher suggested that prescribing a holiday could help the sick recover more quickly -- and even give worn-out office workers a new lease of life. "We could boost the effects of standard drug treatments that deal with the mechanics of infection, by also offering something environmental that improves a patient's more general well-being. That might be a promising approach for treating chronic diseases," D'Acquisto said. The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.