The role of exercise in protecting our health during Covid  

We have covered the importance of diet, in broad strokes, on preventing, controlling and even reversing many of the common non-communicable disease like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, auto-immune diseases, and many cancers.  Diet is by far the most important intervention in controlling these conditions. 

The second most important intervention is physical activity. Our bodies are designed for movement. Sedentary lifestyle is responsible for 1 in 10 premature deaths. We all know that smoking cessation is a major cause of death from cancer, heart disease and chronic lung disease.  But lack of physical activity is an even greater risk than smoking (that doesn’t mean you can continue smoking if you are physically active!).  

Do you have to run marathons to benefit from exercise?  

As little as 15 minutes per day, or 90 minutes per week of moderate intensity exercise reduced by almost 15% all-cause mortality, and 3 years longer life expectancy in a study of over 415,000 individuals.  Fifteen minutes per day is reachable for most people, even if you break it up into 3 batches of 5 minutes.  Of course that is just a start. 

The more you do, the better the outcome. It is possible to do yourself damage by doing too much too quickly. As you get older, it is even more important to start gradually and build up your work-outs.  

Do you have to go to a gym to do it correctly?  

There are benefits from going to a gym. You can set up a routine; the gym membership may be an incentive to get the best out of your investment; having an excuse to get away form the house or work pressures may be an incentive; being supervised by a trainer, or going through different routines may provide motivation.  

But you do not have to spend a lot of money to stay physically fit and healthy.  You can also accomplish that goal by walking around your neighbourhood, or on a popular road near the sea, or even walking up and down the mall briskly if you want a safe and cool place to work out, or spending some rewarding time in your garden weeding, mowing the lawn, planting and landscaping.

What does exercise have to do with Covid?  

As you will find from the following article from Victoria State Health in Australia, exercise has many benefits in times of Covid.   We have discussed before that the co-morbidities of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, auto-immune diseases and cancer, significantly increase the risks of severe illness and death if you get Covid.

Exercise as mentioned above can impact every one of these to reduce the risks.  Here are some of the ways that regular exercise/physical activity reduces co-morbidities:

• Reduces high blood pressure by up to 8 mm mercury
• Improves insulin sensitivity (and reduces insulin resistance)
• Reduces weight as part of multiple weight loss interventions
• Improves depression and anxiety
• Improves quality of sleep, allowing restoration of physiology
• Improves immunity and suppresses chronic inflammation
• Promotes a healthy microbiome, with resultant improvement in overall health
• Reduces the risks of cancer – particularly colon and breast cancer.
• Reduces pain and inflammation in chronic arthritis (may need guidance from physiotherapist or occupational therapist).
• If you are exercising in the sunshine, increases the production of vitamin D through your skin, well known to improve your immune system in many respiratory diseases, especially if you are vit D deficient. Sunshine also has healing properties.

  This is not a good time to be doing excessive exercise – like running marathons – especially if you have had Covid recently. Remember Covid can affect the integrity of the endothelium (the smooth lining of blood vessels) and increase the risk of blood clots and strokes and heart attacks, apart from causing major fatigue. 

The best option is light exercise.  Next week we will talk about the risks of inactivity and being a couch potato, on general health.  Even though the numbers of positive tests and admissions for Covid are coming down, it is still important to persist with the standard protocols – wearing masks, hand washing or sanitising, social distancing and avoiding crowded places.  

Stay safe,  

Dave Glass  

Dr David Glass graduated from UCT in 1975. He spent the next 12 years working at a mission hospital in Lesotho, where much of his work involved health education and interventions to improve health, aside from the normal busy clinical work of an under-resourced mission hospital. He returned to UCT in 1990 to specialise in obstetrics/gynaecology and then moved to the South Coast where he had the privilege of, amongst other things, ushering 7000 babies into the world. He no longer delivers babies but is still very clinically active in gynaecology. An old passion, preventive health care, has now replaced the obstetrics side of his work. He is eager to share insights he has gathered over the years on how to prevent and reverse so many of the modern scourges of lifestyle – obesity, diabetes, ischaemic heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, common cancers, etc. He is a family man, with a supportive wife, and two grown children, and four beautiful grandchildren. His hobbies include walking, cycling, vegetable gardening, bird-watching, travelling and writing. He is active in community health outreach and deeply involved in church activities. He enjoys teaching and sharing information.

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