Healthy lifestyle habits appear to confer significant protection against long-lasting COVID, researchers report in the Medical Journal Pages JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study looked at a possible association between six factors and protection from what the researchers call a “post-COVID condition.”
The six factors studied are a healthy body mass index, the fact of having never smoked, the practice of at least 150 minutes of physical activity of moderate or vigorous intensity each week, a moderate consumption of alcohol, a healthy eating and quality sleep.
“It potentially presents avenues of approach that we could undertake [et] who would look at whether implementing healthy lifestyle habits could reduce the risk of catching long-lasting COVID,” commented Dr. Emilia Liana Falcone, who directs the post-COVID-19 research clinic at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal.
Unfavorable body mass index and diet, poor-quality diet, and smoking were most strongly associated with long-term COVID risk. In contrast, “a healthy weight and adequate sleep duration may confer the greatest benefits in preventing [de la COVID longue] write the researchers at the conclusion of their study.
The higher the number of healthy lifestyle habits, the lower the risk of long-lasting COVID, the researchers add. Thus, the risk of long COVID was 49% lower among participants who had five or six good lifestyle habits compared to those who had none.
Biological mechanisms
The researchers believe that certain biological mechanisms could explain the association they found. For example, they point out that the unhealthy habits studied have already been linked to chronic inflammation. These factors could also interfere with the effectiveness of the immune system. Finally, they point out that unhealthy factors predispose to abnormalities in blood clotting, a problem that has been found in patients with long COVID.
The most common symptoms reported by the approximately 2,000 study participants were fatigue, problems with taste or smell, difficulty breathing, mental fog and memory problems. The results of the analyzes were similar whether long COVID was defined as the presence of these symptoms for two or four months.
However, the study does not specify how long healthy lifestyle habits must be in place to obtain a protective effect, said Dr. Falcone. As it would be useless to adopt them after the infection to protect ourselves from the long COVID, the study essentially invites prevention, in the same way that we should eat well and sleep well and move well to protect our cardiovascular health.
“If we manage body mass, if we don’t smoke, if we limit our alcohol intake… all of these things are things that improve risk factors for other comorbidities like cardiovascular disease, lung disease , cancers, recalled Dr. Falcone. We are now adding another benefit, which is potentially having fewer sequelae or less severe sequelae, which would potentially last less time, in the context of a COVID infection. »
Follow-up studies are now needed to examine whether the same protective effect occurs against novel COVID variants, she added, since this study focused primarily on the early waves of the pandemic.
A previous study in the UK determined that smoking, physical inactivity, obesity and heavy alcohol consumption together accounted for 51% of severe COVID cases in that country.