Covid-19: Lack of exercise increases the risk of death in patients

Lack of exercise is found to be a reason for causing more severe symptoms and a higher risk of death in Covid-19 patients. This was revealed in a recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The study was conducted on 48,440 adult patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis from 1 January 2020 to 21 October 2020. It was conducted at Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC), which is an integrated healthcare system that serves approximately 4.7 million residents in Southern California at 15 medical centres. The people in the area have similar racial/ethnic make-up, neighbourhood education, and household income. KPSC uses a comprehensive Electronic Health Record (EHR) that links all laboratory results, healthcare visits, and diagnoses in both inpatient and outpatient settings and even outside the system. Hospitalisation, admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and death due to COVID-19 were the primary outcomes examined.

The study found out that COVID-19 patients who were consistently inactive during the 2 years preceding the pandemic were likely to be hospitalised, admitted to the intensive care unit, and die than patients who were consistently engaged in physical activity. Advanced age and a history of organ transplantation are the two risk factors other than physical inactivity that cause severe COVID-19 outcomes.

When compared with consistently inactive patients, those with some physical activity had lower odds for hospitalisation and death.  This study proves that any amount of physical activity may have benefits.

Physical inactivity was found to be the strongest risk factor across all outcomes, compared with the commonly cited modifiable risk factors which include smoking, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

The researchers recommend that public health authorities should inform all populations that other than vaccination and following public health safety guidelines such as social distancing 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.