LONDON: A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has found that people who were leading a sedentary lifestyle for at least two years before the pandemic were more likely to be hospitalised, to require intensive care, and to succumb to the disease, as compared to people suffering with other pre-existing risk factors such as smoking, obesity, advanced age, diabetes, being males or hypertension. The authors said that ‘physical inactivity was the strongest risk factor across all outcomes.’
As a risk factor for serious COVID-19 disease, physical inactivity was surpassed only by advanced age and a history of organ transplant. The research was conducted between January and October 2020 in the United States among 48,440 adults infected with COVID-19 to see whether a lack of exercise increases the odds of severe infection, hospitalisation, admission into an intensive care unit (ICU), and death.
All of the patients reported their physical activity regularly at least three times between March 2018 and March 2020 at outpatient clinics. Some 15 per cent described themselves as inactive (0-10 minutes of physical activity per week), nearly 80 per cent reported “some activity” (11-149 minutes/week), and 7 per cent were consistently active in keeping with national health guidelines (150+ minutes/week).
After accounting for difference in race, age and underlying medical conditions, sedentary COVID-19 patients were more than twice as likely to be admitted to hospital as those who were most active. They were also 73 per cent more likely to require intensive care, and 2.5 times more likely to die due to the infection.
While the link is statistically strong, the study is observational, as opposed to a clinical trial, and thus it cannot be construed as direct evidence that a lack of exercise directly caused the difference in outcomes. The findings also depended on self-reporting by patients, which has a potential for bias.