Having the greatest protection against severe outcomes after Covid-19 infection is largely attributed to vaccination. However, the effectiveness of the injection may improve with physical activity, a new to study found.
Elevated levels of physical activity appeared to be associated with greater effectiveness of the primary series of the covid-19 vaccine, according to new research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“The higher the dose of exercise, the higher the protective effect, obviously up to a point,” Jon Patricios, professor of sports and exercise medicine at Wits University in Johannesburg and co-author of the study, told CNBC Make It.
So how often and how hard should you exercise to get the most benefit from your covid-19 vaccines? This is what Patricios and his co-authors discovered.
2.5 hours of exercise a week can increase protection against severe Covid outcomes in vaccinated people
The researchers found that vaccinated people with the greatest protection against serious outcomes, such as hospitalization, after Covid-19 infection followed these exercise guidelines:
- Frequency: They completed at least 150 minutes, or two and a half hours, of physical activity each week.
- Intensity: Your physical activity was moderate intensity, meaning your heart rate was between 70% and 79% of your maximum heart rate during exercise.
Participants within this group were 2.8 times less likely to develop severe Covid-19 outcomes than people who rarely exercise. Or, in simpler terms, their vaccines were 25% more effective in protecting them from these outcomes than sedentary people.
In a video embedded in the studio, visual representations of weightlifting and running stand out as some of the exercises the group performed.
“It’s likely that at a higher level of physical activity, you get a more positive stimulation of that immune response,” says Dr. Elizabeth Joy, Intermountain Healthcare’s senior medical director of wellness and nutrition, who was not involved in the study. .
“In turn, that results in the observed decrease in disease burden.”
However, even vaccinated people who exercised between 60 minutes and 149 minutes were 1.4 times less likely to have severe cases of covid infection.
This is how the study was carried out.
The researchers analyzed data collected from South Africa’s largest health insurer from nearly 200,000 vaccinated adults in the country, including men and women. At the time the study was conducted, only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was available.
The data included Covid-19 PCR test results from February to October 2021. And the number of minutes of physical activity, step count, and heart rate data were tracked for each person using a wearable device.
Exercise can also reduce the chances of serious covid outcomes in unvaccinated people
“We had another to study which showed that in people who contracted Covid, and those were unvaccinated people, those who did the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week had better results,” says Patricios.
“Fewer were admitted to hospitals, fewer of them were in the ICU and on ventilators and fewer of them died.”
Similar to his research, a to study was conducted on more than 48,000 participants with covid, before vaccines were available, to determine whether exercise was associated with a lower risk of serious disease outcomes.
The researchers found that those who walked or exercised consistently, prior to infection, were about half as likely to be hospitalized due to Covid.
“This further adds to the evidence base that people who are more physically active are healthier,” says Joy.
Although it has been widely studied that exercise can reduce the risks of non-communicable diseases such as dementia Y cancer“Physical activity is also a successful strategy to prevent communicable diseases like Covid-19,” says Joy.
When it comes to physical activity for better health outcomes, he says, “none are bad, some are good.” [and] more is better.”
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