March 19, 2021

 Beware: Slow walkers with normal weight four times more likely to die from COVID-19

Since the beginning of the global pandemic, we have known that people with underlying health conditions and the elderly are at more risk of severe infection and death if they catch the COVID-19 virus. The risk is also high for obese people. Now a new study says that people who walk slowly are almost four times more likely to die from COVID-19. Moreover, they also have over twice the risk of contracting a severe version of the virus. This study was conducted by a team of researchers from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre at the University of Leicester. The International Journal of Obesity published this study, titled ‘Obesity, walking pace and risk of severe COVID-19 and mortality: Analysis of UK Biobank’. 

Slow Walkers With Normal Weight At Risk Too

This study looked at 412,596 middle-aged UK Biobank participants. Researchers analysed the relative association of body mass index (BMI) and self-reported walking pace with the risk of contracting severe COVID-19 and COVID-19 mortality. They found that slow walkers of a normal weight are almost 2.5 times more likely to develop severe COVID-19 and 3.75 times more likely to die from the virus than normal weight fast walkers. It was already known that obesity and frailty are key risk factors for COVID-19 outcomes. This is the first study to show that slow walkers have a much higher risk of contracting severe COVID-19 outcomes, irrespective of their weight. 

Risk Higher Than Fast Walkers With Obesity

A further key finding from this research was that normal weight slow walkers are more at risk for both severe COVID-19 and COVID-19 mortality than fast walkers with obesity. Furthermore, risk was uniformly high in normal weight slow walkers and slow walkers with obesity. Researchers say that fast walkers have been shown to generally have good cardiovascular and heart health, making them more resilient to external stressors, including viral infection but this hypothesis has not yet been established for infectious disease. This may be the reason for their reduced risk. 

Physical Fitness Is An Important Risk Predictor

While many large routine database studies have reported the association of obesity and fragility with COVID-19 outcomes, routine clinical databases do not currently have data on measures of physical function or fitness. According to researchers, it is essential that ongoing public health and research surveillance studies consider incorporating simple measures of physical fitness such as self-reported walking pace in addition to BMI, as potential risk predictors of COVID-19 outcomes that could ultimately enable better prevention methods that save lives.

Source: https://www.thehealthsite.com/