Can aerobic exercise help if you have Covid-19? 16 Nov 2021
Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organisation. While vaccination rates is making a significant difference to the number of deaths and hospitalisations, cases are on the rise here in the UK. What I have heard from clients who have had it recently and friends and family is that they don’t seem to be getting it as severely as they expected.
So I was very interested in a small study that looked at the effects of aerobic exercise on the immune biomarkers and disease severity and progression in patients with mild or moderate Covid-19.
30 participants were randomly assigned to a control group or an exercise group who did 40 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, three sessions per week for two weeks. Measurements of blood immune markers and the severity of the respiratory symptoms were measured. The results indicated that two weeks of moderate-intense aerobic exercise decreased the severity and progression of Covid-19 and positively affected the immune function of the participants.