Physical activity can cut COVID severity – Study
Exercise helps build immunity that mitigates COVID impact.
Exercise has always been known to boost health. This time around, researchers found that exercising for at least 150 minutes per week helped keep the body active, muscles flexible and organs strong, which together slowed down the prognosis of diseases.
According to the findings of the study published in Harvard Health, physically inactive people were more likely to become severely ill after testing COVID positive.
The study assessed 48,440 COVID-positive individuals aged above 18 years between January and October 2020.
The participants were asked two questions:
- The number of days they exercised per week rating moderate to strenuous on a scale of 0-7.
- How many minutes of physical activity on a scale of 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 90, 120, 150, or more
On the basis of responses, the participants were divided into three groups –
- Active (with over 150 minutes of exercise per week)
- Inactive (between 0 to 10 minutes per week)
- Variable active (between 11 to 149 minutes of exercise per week)
Researchers found that the inactive group had a higher risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death from COVID-19 as against people who were active and variable active.
Low physical activity was also associated with comorbidities like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
