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Methods:

>A retrospective cohort study of Kaiser Permanente Southern California
adult patients who had a positive COVID-19 diagnosis between January 1,
2020 and May 31, 2021 was created. The exposure was the median of at
least 3 physical activity self-reports before diagnosis. Patients were
categorized as follows: always inactive, all assessments at 10
minutes/week or less; mostly inactive, median of 0–60 minutes per week;
some activity, median of 60–150 minutes per week; consistently active,
median>150 minutes per week; and always active, all
assessments>150 minutes per week. Outcomes were hospitalization,
deterioration event, or death 90 days after a COVID-19 diagnosis. Data
were analyzed in 2022.

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Darwin break checking our fat asses.

It amazes me that this is the same thing that keeps being said over and over since the very beginning and everybody's shocked.

Is this not true of like.... 99% of diseases?

Right... you mean to tell me that all the negative health effects of covid are exacerbated by the negative health effects someone has attained by being overweight/unhealthy?!?! No freaking way...

If you're unhealthy to start with getting sick is going to be worse off for you than somebody who is the same age but in good shape.

I was in a motorcycle accident in October and have been unable to walk since then due to my left leg being crushed. I'm in my 60's and the inactivity worries me.

I literally did one of my best workouts while unknowingly being covid positive.

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But our government did nothing to promote physical activity and living a healthy lifestyle. Instead, they shut gyms down and closed down parks.

How is this not surprising

Are we allowed to talk about this now? Phew. Finally.

I'm glad this is being published more extensively now.

This has been extremely obvious from the beginning - and especially with milder variants. But the politicalization and extremism surrounding covid have made this largely unacceptable to talk about.

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Similar mechanisms may be at play in boosting the efficacy of the vaccine. At least, I thought I once saw a suggestion that physical activity might be beneficial concurrent with getting vaccinated - it supposedly improves the immune response. I don't know if that was ever studied, but like a good, obsessive health nut I made the most of it. When the pandemic started I amped up my running in spite of the dirty looks I got from all the locked-down, germaphobic walkers who were suddenly crowding my routes. (And even the most sane of us had turned into a germaphobe!) And in the days surrounding my vax and booster I dragged myself out to run as though I was swallowing medicine. And look -- I've yet to suffer any Covid symptoms, even though I've shared a house with those who have. Yeah, I realize that this is anecdotal. Just saying.

And of course, this could be only correlation without causation. That is, having an effective immune response might be the primary reason anyone is able to remain (and report being) "always active" as well as why they're so much less likely to die. A person's activity level could be nothing but an inconsequential feature.

I was (and still am) pretty active. Running 6-10km/day.

Covid messed my cardio system up. It took over 8 months for my heart to recover. It messed with my aerobic and anaerobic threshold badly. The weird thing is that I felt better than ever, but my hr monitors and performance didn't lie. It set me back years of training and I still don't have my full sense of taste back.

It really makes me wonder how bad it would have been had I not been vaccinated and pretty fit. It also makes me wonder how many people are still experiencing the impact and don't know it. If I wasn't watching so closely and tracking with hr monitor I would never have known.

No, we will close gyms, fill skate parks with sand, and send police after people going on a jog or walk. Plague rats!

This was known by those that workout way before Covid.

> by being overweight/unhealthy

The authors compared overweight people or people with hypertension between the exercise groups. The effect of exercise was just as dramatic for people affected by those conditions. Obviously, caveat for other conditions but the authors do discuss

I wonder if you were too active? The study defines high exercise as over 150 minutes a week. That's laughable for active people. I've heard references to the J shaped curve for exercise. Too little really bad, but too much can also have problems. Your 42 miles a week probably hits 400 minutes. On top of other activities maybe too much? Do you have a Garmin? Does it tell you to rest more?

Alternatively, the exercise effect is still a numbers game. Some folks still were hospitalized and died even with high exercise. You were just unlucky.

Regardless, hope you get better soon.

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Thanks for your thoughts. I feel better now, but it was night and day the impact it had.

I don't feel I was too active. On rest days I would rest.

In general the vast majority of my workouts were zone 2 baseline training, rather than higher intensity workouts. I much prefer low and slow to build endurance for other sports. Occasionally when recommended by Garmin I will throw in an anerobic/threshold workout, but typically focus heavily on base load. I also train by heart rate rather than pace to ensure I don't overextend myself.

For an example - my "fitness" on training peaks is 38, and my Garmin load is ~450/week.

I am also quite sedintary most of the time (office job and likes reading/gaming/tv) so it is important I try to fit that much activity into my week.

And simultaneously pushed gene therapy disguised as a vaccine on unwilling recipients.

I've found this in general with regards to illness. The years I've been recovering from injuries and unable to run or lift daily I get sick more often.

"categorized patients as consistently meeting physical activity guidelines (≥3 assessments of at least 150 minutes per week of physical activity), consistently inactive (≥3assessments <10 minutes per week of physical activity), or some activity (3 or more assessments in between these requirements).

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It’s just kind of crazy to me that this caused absolutely zero public discussion about healthy activities. Why not have the president come out and tell the whole US to get active for 30 min a day.

Use a non motorized wheelchair and pump those arms, what, 10 20 mins a day? I wish you the best

I think this is the right choice, i often wonder about causation vs correlation for weight and vitamin D. These are easy for people to quantify (bmi and vitamin d levels) and point to for health, and exercise's scope is growing as a free of charge preventative maintenance for all kinds of diseases (Alzheimer's too)

There's lots of ways to exercise without walking! Is swimming an option? Or go to the gym and use a handcycle erg and weight machines.

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They can also be exacerbated by your genes, no matter your physical conditioning. I'm overweight and 58 but I'm vaxxed and boosted, and I've had it according to tests but showed absolutely no symptoms, and I work with a guy who is in peak physical condition and is a search and rescue and water rescue member of the local responders (mountainous terrain in North Carolina - they teach their techniques all over the world) and he's had Covid twice, and can't smell anymore. He was out of work for two weeks the second time he had it. He refuses to get vaxxed because, you know.

The best thing you can do is get vaccinated. You're not going to lift or vitamin your way past this. There's a lot of Joe Rogen fans out there who can still listen to him at the gym, but they can't smell anything anymore. Womp, womp.

Because it's not actually true... hypertension and inflammation are way worse for COVID

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That may be true, but we are talking numbers here, and i am guessing that there are more people who don’t exercise than have hypertension and inflammation.

There are always exceptions.

Over and over, not just with respect to covid, but with respect to every single health condition we know about. Exercise even helps things that are neurological like epilepsy and Parkinson's to such an extraordinary degree that doctors can tell if you're lying about your activity levels based on how quickly the diseases progress.

Our bodies are not adapted to be static lumps. It destroys every system we have inside of us to remain inactive.

What part is not true? Are you disagreeing that physical activity reduces the odds of developing severe or lethal covid by very large amounts?

Additionally, do you know what helps to mitigate hypertension and systemic inflammation? Regular physical activity.

Indeed there are outliers to every rule. Some little kids and even babies can get cancer. Some people can smoke for 85 years and die at the ripe old age of 105 with no lung issues or anything of the sort.

But when we talk about public healthy we talk about likelihoods. It's extremely unlikely for someone to live to 105 having smoked for 8 decades. It's extremely unlikely for little kids and babies to get cancer. And it is much more likely for someone who is overweight and does not exercise to suffer severe or lethal covid than someone who is very fit.

Por que no los dos?

Do you have any evidence that there is any exercise threshold, beyond say individuals sessions done to total physical collapse that may temporarily weaken the immune system, worsens the experience of covid?

I think it's more likely to say that there are outliers to norms, and that this person likely would have been worse off if they exercised less.

It is quite strange and disappointing that this messaging was missed. It would have been a great time to really get this conversation going. Sadly we received the opposite message and we now have a cult of people who espouse the belief that any exercise that feels hard is bad and any hunger cravings must be indulged taking over nutritional practices.

You don’t need to be a scientist to know this.

Did this study account for those who were less active because of pre-existing conditions that then exacerbated their symptoms of covid?

>adjusted for age category, sex, race, ethnicity, BMI, ever smoker, hospital utilization, HbA1c, comorbidities, Medicaid status, and vaccination status before COVID-19 diagnosis

When we’re you not allowed to talk about this? The only time I saw people take issue with it is when it was presented as an alternative to getting the vaccine.

What's your diet like? Go through a standard day of eating.

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covid any illness, probably.

Same as it ever was: We don’t need more science. We need more people to listen to it.

It’s been known since ancient times.

Wow, big surprise; overweight and unhealthy people get sick more than those who are healthy

Good thing we closed gyms taped off playgrounds and dumped sand on skateparks!

Damn for some reason I thought being a fat sloth was protective

that seems weak .. so lets take two retirees, both with these same comorbidities etc, except one is still strong enough to walk around everyday while the other gets long winded and can hardly manage walking to the carport .. one would already expect them to have vastly different mortality risks, whether for covid or everything ..

basically it's a huge confounding factor in almost all these studies whether the comparison being made is simply between people who choose to exercise vs those who choose to be sedentary, or whether it is between people who still have the ability to be active vs those who are already weakened and homebound etc .. especially when you include elderly in such studies

(that said, ofc there are numerous better structured studies that show the clear benefit of exercise, certainly no doubts about that in general)

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Can you show me someone who is shocked?

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They didn't claim causation, just association. And, quite frankly, that would also be the outcome of the scenario you described.

My diet is ok, I should eat more veggies, but it also isn't terrible. I am not sure how relevant it is though - I ate the same before during and after my recovery.

Is there an impact that I should be aware of?

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I remember outdoor sport parks being closed up. Crazy.

I don't understand how it's so easy to close up all fitness, health related activities, but they can't regulate food and health industry in general to promote healthy diet and activities.

Especially in US, regulate food industry to have cheaper healthy foods and reduce availability of unhealthy fast foods, etc.

Why would it be presented as an alternative? It's not either this or that.

And consider that many people lost their routine of doing sports, which could've affected their routine afterwards everything was reopened as well. I know I used to be an active, disciplined gym goer with established routine, but I didn't have motivation after to have the same routine as I did before. I felt like I already lost a lot of my gains, and so after that my going to gym was more on and off. It can be hard to re-establish this motivation, since part of my motivation was being on the peak of my records and skill. So I was always motivated about potential progress.

There was a lot we didn’t know back then but that we knew. We knew obesity and sedentary life styles were a huge risk factor and we took measures lock people into their homes with junk food and Netflix to medicate the ensuing depression.

Are you eating a lot of processed foods?

If it was adjusted for BMI, the effect of exercise should and could be so much stronger, since if you would start to exercise your BMI would also improve, which is also known risk factor. So I think given a binary choice to start proper exercise routine or not, the actual improvement of risk odds is much greater than presented by this study, because of how they controlled for everything.

People don't like to be held accountable for their behaviors? (Or I suppose in this case lack of.)

This is shocking.

Queue Taylor: "It's me.

HI!

I'm the problem it's me!"

Covid on wheels... Super spreaders man.

There were subs that would literally ban you for saying this too loudly under the justification that you were downplaying the dangers of the disease.

Young, healthy, active Americans were not dying from COVID by the tens of thousands. Saying this should never have been controversial.

Craziest part is that people act like the social pressure (both formal and informal) to silence basic facts and information never occurred.

Were you active on reddit in late 2020 and early 2021? Saying that covid didn't carry some massive mortality risk for young, healthy Americans would get you labeled as a COVID denier pretty quickly and put you at risk of catching a ban in plenty of subs.

ANALyzing everything is all they know. Even if it's common sense...

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Wouldn't the people who hadn't exercised more likely also be obese?

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I wonder if it’s just that active people tend to have more resilient bodies, in my time in the military it was always preached that you were more likely to survive trauma if you were more physically fit

I feel like this is another clear case of correlation and not causation. If someone doesn’t exercise there is a higher chance they already have pre-existing conditions like injury or health complications that can lead to Covid causing more problems. While exercise could have helped I don’t think this actually means much.

Any movement is good movement! Do what you can, and dont be too hard on yourself. Youre going through alot, any movement to get that blood flowing is great! It doesnt have to be in a gym or using your legs at all. If you have some movement in your legs but cant stand, maybe a floor pedal bike or floor elliptical would be a good option, theyre very common in older folk who cant stand for too long. If not, arm or core exercises, even just a few minutes a day, is better than nothing and will be great for your mental health to help you through this tough time. Best of luck to you!

Obesity is probably the second biggest risk factor after age. This is just restating that known fact.

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So, disabled/chronically ill people got sicker than healthy people?

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It’s wild. People really hitting everyone with the “we have always been at war with Eurasia “.

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I had a previous Reddit account before I switched phones I forgot my details and I saw people mention things like this but the difference is that they would often say the vaccine is much worse not just in kids but also young adults and the reality is that it wasn't true. The vaccine is only worse in young men for myocarditis, marginally. But it's much better for things like pericarditis, heart failure and survival outcomes. On balance the vaccine is better, but how much better obviously decreases as you got younger and healthier. But it always remained better.

If people just said that in young, healthy adults, it isn't quite as useful as in older ones therefore the vaccine is not as much of an imperative then that would be fine. The problem is that they usually went further than that and said therefore don't take the vaccine.

I mean do you think the government telling people to exercise and change their diets is really going to do anything? Are you that naive? They've been trying to do that for years to fight the obesity epidemic. It hasn't been working. People know their lifestyles are unhealthy, it's not a knowledge problem. It's a society problem. We've created a society where it's cheap and easy to eat crap and be sedentary.

When my grandparents were alive their doctor tried to get them to be more active and change their diet and they tried but we're talking about a lifetime's worth of habits you're trying to change. It doesn't happen overnight and it won't happen during a pandemic. Even if it did, it's going take time for people to reap the benefits and you don't have time.

Gyms happen to be a terrible place for spreading airborne disease. You have people breathing heavily and swearing everywhere. Understand there's a lot that goes into decisions leading to shutting down a gym. Less infection equals less bad health outcomes. I was a daily gym goer for a decade and started working out at home, you wouldn't find me in a gym during a pandemic.

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https://peterattiamd.com/jamesokeefe/

This is the podcast where i heard the expression:

"The danger in excessive exercise—a reverse J-shaped mortality curve [21:15]"

Thanks for sharing this. I’m in the “long covid” club despite mild acute covid infections. My pre covid exercise was pretty intense. BJJ 3-4 days a week and strength training 5 days per week… I was definitely overdoing it and tried to resume that activity immediately following my initial covid infection. Health just kept slipping downhill from there. Cardio was awful so I just kept pushing harder, trying to get back to where I was previously. Never thought exercise could be making me worse. Very tough lesson to learn.

I agree. No one was prevented from talking about the fact that staying in shape was helpful against severe cases of Covid. But a lot of anti-vaccine people would bring it up in discussions of vaccines as an alternative, and that’s what people took issue with.

You would get banned in 2020 for saying what this study says

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All of the instances i saw talked about being healthy and moving before there was even a vaccine available, and that was still being kicked back in peoples faces.

That is a very interesting theory. But has it been adjusted to account for the age of the patient? Older people tend to be less active than younger people. And older people tended to get sicker and die more often.

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400 minutes a week is less than an hour a day. I’d be very surprised if that’s “too active” for the average human body

Alright. Definitely not the experience I had, and I’m in a very blue state and hang out in very progressive spaces. What would someone even say to “it’s more healthy to be in good physical shape than not.”?

I’m in a nice mixed space. Suburbs in a mainly red state with blue cities, it was usually a “get outside and exercise because it gives you a better outlook” and the one person that sticks out is my friend’s overweight mother in law arguing saying that they suggest staying inside and not interacting with anyone, which for her condition probably should be the case. Her sons spouted of the same brain numb response and they don’t have her affliction.

No one is saying the government should have encouraged people to exercise more. Just that during the pandemic, many governments actively inhibited it, and closed down all forms of exercise, even things outside or in very well-ventilated gyms with big, open garage doors, which are extremely low risk.

Fat, already sick, old, were always the highest mortality from the beginning

Exercise is a miracle cure/prevention aid for TONS of things.

If you're physically capable of exercise, there's no reason to NOT be active.

The person I was replying to said that, saw it multiple times in the comments, even someone saying they have no idea why the president didn't come out and tell people to exercise for 30 minutes. It seems your complaint is a bit different though, rather than they closed all gyms rather than certain gyms? This is all going to be heavily regionalized as well

They said what I said actually. That closing down gyms did not promote an active lifestyle. Pretty sure they weren’t arguing that the government should’ve gone out and forced people to exercise. They were annoyed that we closed down exercise facilities.

Edit: don’t you just hate it when somebody edits their comment after you’ve already responded to it, making you sound nonsensical? Not engaging with you anymore if you’re going to do that. Your original comment just said “that’s what the person I was responding to said.“

For sure, but if that is baseline and there are other activities.

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Exercise brought me back from an unimaginable methamphetamine addiction. Be good to your body and it will pull itself straight eventually.

That doesn’t seem like someone speaking against being in good health is healthier than not. That’s advocating against unnecessary interactions with people outside your quarantine bubble. Those aren’t contradictory things. Being in shape will help against Covid, and you shouldn’t risk unnecessary exposure.

While it sounds nice to be able to differentiate between gyms with excellent ventilation and not, in practicality it's quite a logistical nightmare. How are you determining which gyms are allowed to stay open? Is a garage door open enough? What defines good enough ventilation? Can you still have a class of people breathing on each other? Who is checking all these things? The reality is that you need to be able to take public health measures during a pandemic, and closing gyms which are going to be major sources of disease spreading, is a no brainer. It's a weird hill to die on imo. Theres more ways to exercise than the gym, I know because I've been doing it.

Yep and I really doubt Covid mutates as easily to avoid a strong cardio system and robust immune systems like it has for the various vaccines. Don’t get me wrong they are good too and I keep up with them but they are my plan B behind a healthy and active lifestyle.

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So close all gyms but keep fast food restaurants open. Stupidity at its finest

You know what’s worse for disease then a gym? Sitting at home, eating junk food and being sedentary. That’s what our government promoted. They even discouraged people from going on walks and hikes in the fresh open air.

Just curious where you're from where going on walks or hikes was discouraged?

This would be a false equivalency, takeout with proper precautions should be fairly low risk. Sit down to eat with a mask off is obviously theater. Of course you're trying to compare eating junk food to working out. Obesity is a different epidemic and we can discuss solutions to that but I have my doubts you care that much.

Moms were being kicked out of parks with their kids by law enforcement. Surfers getting kicked out of the damn ocean. The lockdowns in certain states were absolutely insane. Certain state and local governments were totalitarian in their lockdowns. This was pretty rampant during the beginning months of Covid and into the summer.

Young, healthy gym goers weren’t the ones filling up hospitals. The media and our government was completely dishonest from the beginning. They made it seem like everyone was getting violently ill and dying from Covid, when the vast majority were over 65, and chronically unhealthy. So why close gyms? For what purpose? Who were they protecting? But keep drive thrus open at McDonald’s and Burger King.

I don't know what media you were watching but that wasn't never the narrative I heard, even from the beginning. This seems to be the mistake I hear from people with your point of view all the time. It's a selfish one that doesn't understand society and public health. Yes the majority of deaths were not young, healthy people. But with just obesity being a co-morbidity that's 42% of the population. Then throw in diabetes, asthma, smoking, heart conditions, and the elderly and a majority of your population is at risk. The more people that get sick, the more people it spreads to. This is epidemiology 101. The only way to try to protect an at risk population that large is to try to slow the spread and not overwhelm your healthcare system. Should be really easy to understand. More and more research is pointing to long term complications from COVID without it being fatal, so it's not only death is the only consequence to consider.

Locally at least we had record people hitting the trails in record number. I'm not prepared to defend all local and state government decisions, obviously there's going to be some big mistakes in there. Doesn't make every public health measure wrong

Yes, but telling people to stay inside and not exercise, and there has been studies into the risk walking outside and its pretty minimal, so more about exercise i would say

Who told people to not exercise?