Adults 45 and over who stayed active before the pandemic were 10% less likely to get COVID-19. Those who did get COVID-19 were 27% less likely to be hospitalized for it, a study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open finds.
A team led by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital evaluated data on 61,557 adults. The average age of participants was 76. Of them, 70.7% were women, 87.2% were white and 24.1% were considered obese.
In 2019, the participants reported on their lifestyle factors including physical activity. . Between May 2020 and 2022, the same people reported on whether or not they had gotten COVID-19 and if so, if they were hospitalized.
Data was broken down into three categories: Inactive people got 0 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise, insufficiently active people got 60 minutes a week and sufficiently active individuals engaged in150 minutes or more a week. Of the respondents, 20.2% said they were inactive, 11.4% were insufficiently active and 68.5% were sufficiently active.
During the study period, 5,890 people caught COVID-19 and 626 were hospitalized for it. Compared with inactive people, those who were insufficiently active didn’t have a significant reduction in infection or hospitalization. But those who were classified as sufficiently active had a significant reduction in infection and hospitalization.”This large, unique study in older adults as they navigated the onset of the pandemic provides important support for physical activity in preventing COVID-19 infection and hospitalization that may extend more broadly to enhanced immune function and lessening vulnerability to infections,” Howard Sesso, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lead author, said in a statement.
