COVID Therapy: Exercise

"We found that consistently meeting physical activity guidelines was strongly associated with reduced odds for severe COVID-19 among infected adults."

"Those who were consistently meeting physical activity guidelines [150 minutes or more of exercise per week] were less likely to be hospitalized, admitted to the ICU or die related to COVID-19 than those who were consistently inactive or doing some activity."

"It is notable that being consistently inactive was a stronger risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes than any of the underlying medical conditions and risk factors identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention except for age and a history of organ transplant."

"In fact, physical inactivity was the strongest risk factor across all outcomes, compared with the commonly cited modifiable risk factors, including smoking, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer."

Research team, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, California

Exercise doesn’t have to mean playing sport or going to the gym – dancing, brisk walking or mowing the lawn all count. alexei_tm/Shutterstock

A study newly published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in April has equated regular exercise with the best-advice therapy for prevention of severe COVID-19 outcomes. Exercise is well known to boost immunity, with active individuals seen to be less prone to viral infections and inflammation. These are also the hallmarks of of COVID-19 infection. The study and its conclusion provides the first real proof linking exercise to a reduced risk of the SARS-CoV-2 virus's most serious effects.

The research team, led by Robert Sallis, co-director of Kaiser Permanente's Sports Medicine Fellowship, decided to fill the gap of scant data linking exercise to reduced COVID-19 consequences risk. Dr.Sallis and his team studied health records of 48,440 people who had tested positive for COVID-19 and who happened to be patients of a Southern California health-care system routinely collecting data on exercise habits. With that collected exercise data, the researchers set out to classify the physical activity level of each patient.

The researchers made three categories; 1) consistently meeting physical activity guidelines amounting to 150 minutes or more of weekly exercise; 2) consistently inactive equating to no exercise or up to ten minutes each week; 3) some level of activity amounting to 11 up to 149 minutes weekly. Proceeding to compare exercise volume against hospitalization, admission to intensive care unit, and death (and including age, race, gender and medical history of all patients) the researchers produced a novel picture of the impact of exercise on the severity of COVID-19 symptoms.

 

(Photo: Twenty20 | Galina Zhigalova)

 

The odds of hospitalization were seen to be increased 2.26 times for the group that were consistently inactive in comparison to those who exercised 150 minutes each week -- and for those who did some level of activity, the odds of requiring treatment though higher than the most active, was still less than those in the least active category, with chances of being hospitalized, 1.89 times greater than those most active, in the study.

 

Subjects consistently exercising represented only 6.4 percent of the study subjects, while those who exercised for ten minutes or less weekly represented 14.4 percent of the study subjects, leaving the balance of the subjects in the category of "some activity". The average age of those in the study was 47, and the average body mass index of the entire group came in at 31.2, the low end of the overweight category. 61.9 percent of the study subjects were female; 8.6 percent of the total were hospitalized, 2.4 percent admitted to the ICU, and 1.6 percent died of COVID.

During the pandemic, opportunities for organized or team exercise has been badly diminished as sport clubs, gyms and golf courses have been shut down under lockdowns sporadically. Some people just gave up on their lifestyle exercise habits, others found alternate methods of exercising to ensure they remained physically active. During the sporadic lockdowns the effect has been that fewer people are now either committed to, or taking steps to continue to protect their physical health through exercise. Studies have confirmed that fewer people are now achieving 150 minutes of weekly exercise.

 

"We recommend that public health authorities inform all populations that short of vaccination and following public health safety and mask use, engaging in regular physical activity may be the single most important action individuals can take to prevent severe COVID-19 and its complications, including death."

Research team, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, California