Regular exercise habits seem to be just the thing to shake off serious COVID-19 complications, according to a new study among more than 48,000 Kaiser Permanent patients in Southern California.
Kaiser members who reported regularly exercising at least 150 minutes of moderate to strenuous exercise per week – mostly faster or better – when diagnosed with COVID-19 significantly lower the chances of hospitalization, including the intensive care unit and the dead than those who estimated their weekly efforts at 10 minutes or less.
The results were less dramatic, yet visible, to those who said they exercise between 10 and 149 minutes a week.
Researchers found that the risk of hospitalization for those with low activity levels was more than twice as high as for those who moved at least 2.5 hours a week. Low activity levels also correlated with mortality rates that were approximately 2.5 times higher than those with high activity levels.
Consistent physical inactivity has been found to be a more serious risk factor than existing heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and high blood pressure among the group of patients studied. Only a previous organ transplant or pregnancy during the infection correlated with greater chance of COVID-related hospitalization.
Dr. James Sallis, an emeritus professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health in UC San Diego and co-author of the article, said the findings reinforce the research that has been consistently and increasingly shown on many types of diseases.
“Physical activity is one of the strongest producers of health that exists, and yet it is basically ignored in most medical care,” he said.
For years, for example, the empirical evidence has become stronger in cancer. Cancer patients with seven major types of disease have been shown to be measurably better off if they keep exercising during their illness.
Kaiser was, as it happens, perfectly positioned to study physical activity under the coronavirus positively due to an initiative launched in 2009 in which all patients are asked to estimate their exercise levels during routine office visits.
A research team led by dr. Robert Sallis, a specialist in Kaiser sports medicine in Fontana who is not related to his colleague at UCSD, analyzed the composite electronic health record data of 48,440 Kaiser patients in Southern California who had COVID-19 diagnoses between January 1st. and October. 21, 2020, select only those who have estimated their activity levels at least three times in the previous two years.
Since health records reflect the data that were usually recorded before patients tested positive, it indicates ongoing exercise habits. After all, COVID-19 symptoms generally affect even established workouts.
Anne Swisher, a professor of physiotherapy at the University of West Virginia who has extensively studied the health effects of physical activity, said the conclusions of the article are exciting. She said Kaiser’s initiative to record physical activity as an important sign, as well as factors such as height, weight and blood pressure, is the routine of every office visit.
She warned the public to think that those who do not exercise enough think as lazy. In many cases, those who do not move much may have an illness or other condition that makes their life more sedentary than they would like.
“People who are very sedentary can have the biggest barriers to physical activity, such as indicating mobility challenges such as wheelchair users,” Swisher said.
James Sallis, who has spent much of his career studying the effects of exercise on general health, said the results should be a wake-up call for the public health community.
He said that although he and his colleagues insist that a call to keep as much exercise as possible should be an important part of the pandemic message, along with pleas to wash hands and to wear a mask, it usually falls on deaf ears.
Sallis felt it was a missed opportunity because there is a lot of research showing that compounds that are critical to the immune system and reducing inflammation are produced by the body’s muscles.
“We feel that our concern about physical activity was not prioritized during the pandemic, while the message was usually to stay home,” Sallis said. ‘We hope the information in this article can be seen as good proof that we can not ignore the power of physical activity during our response to a pandemic.
” A message that physical activity could protect you from ending up in hospital could, in my opinion, have saved many lives over the past year, but I would also say that it is not too late to get started. ‘
Swisher agreed.
It can not hurt, she said in an email to remind the public as often as possible that exercise is good medicine in a time when everything is closed and screen time is increasing.
“Physical activity is a ‘medicine’ with very few adverse effects,” she said.
The study was first published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on Tuesday.