COVID-19 : Recovery & Prevention
Hello again everyone:
Last week we talked about the elephant in the room, which is that everyone agrees that your pre-existing health status has everything to do with if you get COVID-19, how severe it may be, and how long it may last…yet no one talks about how to improve your health/pre-existing condition…unfortunately, no one is talking about how to increase resiliency and wellness as a component of prevention and recovery. Well, here is something you can do now to improve your immune health as well as your overall health:
The authors state: “Epidemiological evidence indicates that regular physical activity and/or frequent structured exercise reduces the incidence of many chronic diseases in older age, including communicable diseases such as viral and bacterial infections, as well as non-communicable diseases such as cancer and chronic inflammatory disorders.”
Bottom Line: If you are not exercising now, you should consider starting and maintaining a life-long habit of movement for health. If you are not exercising now, start slow and gradually increase effort, intensity and time. The only warning is that if/when someone ‘over trains’, such as tri-athletes or marathon runners, that this can suppress immune function substantially…and while this is for a small minority of us, just be careful as you can also over-train when you are just starting out simply by over doing it.
Another topic is immune senescence, which is how our immune system weakens as we age. It is important to know that exercise can help overcome this problem too…that is…exercise is important at ALL ages. Also, when people of any age are sedentary, we lose muscle mass and this is called sarcopenia. Lowered muscle mass equates to lower immune function and has been classified as a risk factor for infections. Check out this article:
“Abstract
As our population grows older, age-related pathologies are becoming more prevalent. Deterioration of skeletal muscle and the immune system manifests as sarcopenia and immune senescence respectively… Skeletal muscle has emerged as a potent regulator of immune system function. As such, skeletal muscle might be the central integrator between sarcopenia and immune senescence in an aging biological system. Therapeutic approaches targeting skeletal muscle might be able to restore both muscle and immune system function .”
If you are at all familiar with my blog and newsletters, you will notice that I am very frequently discussing inflammation as a mechanism that causes, perpetuates and/or aggravates virtually ALL human health conditions. When you scan the above link/paper, you will see how exercise modulates inflammation and immune function in positive ways…and thus how and why exercise is an absolutely essential component of your natural health life-style endeavors. Ok…keep calm and carry on exercising!!!
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