Although getting a good workout after getting your COVID-19 shot probably isn’t a priority for most people, a recent study suggests that maintaining a healthy level of physical activity may increase the effectiveness of the vaccine. According to research that was recently released in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the quantity of regular exercise that a person engages in correlates positively with the level of protection that individual obtains against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is the causative agent of COVID-19.
The research also revealed evidence that participating in regular physical exercise can help lessen the effects of a significant COVID-19 infection, such as lowering the likelihood of requiring hospitalization, critical care, supported ventilation, or even passing away.
As part of the study, investigators looked through confidential medical records and data from wearable activity trackers that were collected from healthcare workers between February and October of 2021. The participants were sorted into different categories based on the amount of regular exercise they got. Researchers discovered that respondents who were fully immunized and also had greater weekly levels of exercise of 150 min or above a week were well almost three times less prone to be hospitalized compared to those who were fully immunized but who fell into the low exercise category, which was less than 1 hour a week.
According to what the researchers said in the paper, the data point to a probable dose-response relationship, in which high amounts of exercise were related to elevated amounts of vaccine effectiveness.
Due to the observational nature of the study, the researchers were unable to determine a cause for the correlation, and it is possible that the findings cannot be universally applicable to other virus variations or types of COVID-19, such as Omicron.