Mind+Health
Show infectious diseases a clean pair of heels
Being fit can help protect you from Covid-19
REGULAR EXERCISE reduces the chances of dying from infectious diseases such as Covid 19 by more than a third and makes people more than 30 per cent less likely to catch the virus.
Those were the findings of the world’s first study into the link between exercise and Covid immunity, which was published recently in the scientific journal
Sports Medicine. The research, which involved 48,440 adults, found that people need to be doing 30 minutes a day, five days a week, of any exercise that gets them slightly out of breath. Easy running is the perfect example of such an activity.
Physical activity ‘strengthens the first line of defence of the human immune system and a higher concentration of immune cells’, says study lead Sebastien Chastin, professor of Health Behaviour Dynamics at Glasgow Caledonian University. ‘The clear message is stay active – it’s not only good for your mental and general health, but we now have the proof that it is also good for boosting your immunity.’