Healthy body weight and adequate sleep top the list, according to data from Nurses’ Health Study
Women who followed most aspects of a healthy lifestyle; including healthy body weight; not smoking; regular exercise; adequate sleep; high-quality diet; and moderate alcohol consumption; had about half the risk of long COVID compared with women without any healthy lifestyle factors; according to a study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“With ongoing waves of COVID-19; long COVID has created a serious public health burden. Our findings raise the possibility that adopting more healthy behaviors may reduce the risk of developing long COVID,”; said Andrea Roberts; a senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health and senior author of the study.
The study appeared online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
It’s estimated that 8 million to 23 million Americans suffer from long COVID; which is defined as having COVID-19 symptoms four weeks or more after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection. Symptoms can include fatigue; fever; and a variety of respiratory; heart; neurological; and digestive symptoms.
The researchers analyzed data from more than 32,000 female nurses; in the Nurses’ Health Study II; who reported on their lifestyle in 2015 and 2017; and reported a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection from April 2020 to November 2021.
Details of research on lifestyle
During that time, more than 1,900 participants contracted COVID-19. Among these, 44 percent developed long COVID. Compared to women without any healthy lifestyle factors; those with five or six had a 49 percent lower risk of long COVID. Among the six lifestyle factors; maintaining a healthy body weight and getting adequate sleep; (seven to nine hours daily) were the ones most strongly associated with a lower risk of long COVID. The results also showed that; even among women who developed long COVID; those with a healthier pre-infection lifestyle; had a 30 percent lower risk of having symptoms that interfered with their daily life.
The authors noted that one possible explanation for the associations they observed is that; based on prior research; an unhealthy lifestyle is associated with an increased risk of chronic inflammation and immune dysregulation; which have been linked with an increased risk of long COVID.
“In the past decades, scientists have accumulated evidence that a healthy lifestyle is good for overall health. However, in the U.S. for example; 70 percent of the population does not have a healthy body weight and 30 percent do not sleep enough. Findings from this study suggest that simple lifestyle changes; such as having adequate sleep, could be beneficial for the prevention of long COVID”; said lead author Siwen Wang; research fellow in the Department of Nutrition.
Source: Harvard University Website