Long Covid rates could be slashed in half if people ate healthy and exercised

• Nurses practicing 5 healthy lifestyle habits have 49% lower risk of contracting COVID-19
• A healthy weight and adequate sleep were the main factors
• Study results follow speculation that long covid effects have been exaggerated

Studies suggest that maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise and getting enough sleep, can help prevent long-term COVID-19 symptoms.

Nurses who lived healthy lives were about half as likely to have symptoms that persisted after the initial infection cleared.

Researchers at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that the greatest risk factors were getting less than 7 hours of sleep per night and a BMI of less than 25.

Long Covid is a vague term that doctors still struggle to define. The condition includes a wide range of symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath and chest pain.

While the medical community struggles to connect to a single diagnosis, a growing body of scientific evidence casts doubt on the severity of the condition, assuming the crisis is exaggerated.

Long Covid is defined as residual symptoms of Covid infection lasting more than 4 weeks after initial infection.

However, some symptoms that persist for weeks or months may indicate another underlying condition, such as thyroid problems, diabetes, or vitamin deficiencies.

In the latest study, scientists at Harvard University set out to determine how underlying health conditions influence the risk of long-term symptoms.

They collected data from over 32,000 female nurses in the Nurses’ Health Study II. This is a nationwide study that tracks groups of people and looks at their lifestyle and other characteristics to see if they develop disease or die.

Lifestyles considered included a healthy body mass index, tobacco use, diet, alcohol consumption, exercise, and sleep.

A nurse reported on her lifestyle in 2015 and 2017 and her history of Covid infections from April 2020 to November 2021.

During that time, more than 1,900 nurses became infected, 44% of whom developed long-term Covid.

But the team also concluded that nurses who maintained five or six healthy lifestyle habits had a 49% reduced chance of having Covid longer.

Of the six lifestyle factors considered, maintaining a healthy weight and getting enough sleep, about seven to nine hours each day, are the ones most strongly associated with lower long-term Covid risk. was.

Dr. Andrea Roberts, a research scientist at Harvard University and senior author of the study, said: Our findings raise the possibility that adopting healthier behaviors can reduce the long-term risk of developing Covid.

The team also found that even among women with prolonged Covid symptoms, those who had a healthy pre-infection life had a 30% lower risk of developing disabling symptoms. .

An explanation for the link the researchers have established may be that an unhealthy lifestyle can exacerbate the problem of chronic inflammation and immune dysregulation.

their discovery It was published At JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Over the past few decades, scientists have accumulated evidence that a healthy lifestyle is good for overall health,” said lead author Siwen Wang, PhD, a research fellow in the Harvard School of Nutrition. In the United States, 70% of the population is not at a healthy weight and 30% are not getting enough sleep.

“The results of this study suggest that simple lifestyle changes, such as getting enough sleep, may be beneficial in long-term COVID-19 prevention.”

A 2022 federal report projects that nearly 23 million Americans, more than 7% of the population, will be long-term affected by Covid.

For some people, the symptoms become severe enough to interfere with daily life.

Last month, New York’s largest workers’ compensation insurer found that 18% of workers reported being infected with Covid for a long time.

The condition is difficult for doctors to diagnose because symptoms can look like a variety of other conditions, but it has proven fatal in at least 3,500 cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in December that 3,544 people, mostly people over the age of 85, died from the long-term novel coronavirus. Experts looking at deaths in the 30 months of the pandemic through June 2022 found high levels of inflammation in long-term Covid patients exacerbated underlying conditions in already sick patients, increasing their risk of death. suggested that