A study suggests that lack of physical activity puts you at a higher risk of hospitalizations and death.
Why it matters
Regular physical activity generally results in decreased inflammation, thus a better ability to respond to an infectious threat. When compared to sedentary people, people who exercise regularly at moderate intensity have fewer respiratory infections. A team from Kaiser Permanente Medical Center (California) wanted to know if this relationship is verified in the case of COVID-19.
What the researchers found
The retrospective study looked at the medical records of 48,440 adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January 1, 2020 and October 21, 2020. The authors had at least three vital signs measurements available to them. ‘effort, recorded between March 19, 2018 and March 18, 2020.
They then linked the level of physical activity reported by each patient to the risks of hospitalization, admission to intensive care and death after a COVID-19 diagnosis.
These levels were of three types:
constantly inactive, i.e. 0 to 10 minutes of physical activity per week
moderate activity, i.e. 11 to 149 minutes per week
in accordance with the recommendations, ie at least 150 minutes per week.
Demographics and known risk factors were factored into the calculation to determine if inactivity was associated with complications from COVID-19.
Results: Patients with COVID-19 who were inactive had a risk of hospitalization more than 2 times higher than patients who exercised at least 150 minutes per week. They were also almost twice as likely to be admitted to intensive care and more than twice as likely to die. A moderate level of physical activity also appeared to be protective, but to a lesser extent.
The study being retrospective, it does not make it possible to establish a cause and effect link, and could testify to a reverse causal link, namely that people in the most precarious health (and therefore more vulnerable) do less. exercise than others. However, the results of this study are consistent with the accumulated data on the links between physical exercise, immunity and respiratory infectious diseases.
In conclusion, the authors recommend that health authorities encourage physical activity and that this recommendation be integrated into routine medical care.
In practice
The World Health Organization recommends, for the prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases, 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week (walking, cycling, jogging …) and 2 to 3 strength training sessions. These recommendations seem to be able to be extended to the prevention of communicable diseases. Brisk walking is an easy-to-do and non-traumatic form of exercise. During a pandemic, when the rooms are closed, weight training can be practiced outdoors with bodyweight methods.
