Illinois Fitness Alliance 9/1/20 Illinois Fitness Alliance 9/1/20

Physical activity, weight management bolster immune defense against respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, App State professor reports

(Appalachian Today) In a forthcoming review paper, Dr. David Nieman, Appalachian State University professor of biology and director of the university’s Human Performance Laboratory at the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) in Kannapolis, has predicted an increased likelihood for ongoing infectious disease pandemics because the world’s population is becoming older, more unfit and obese.

Read more here: https://today.appstate.edu/2020/06/23/coronavirus-disease

Illinois Fitness Alliance 8/7/20 Illinois Fitness Alliance 8/7/20

Covid-19 vaccines in America could be undermined by the obesity epidemic

(Kaiser Health News) For a world crippled by the coronavirus, salvation hinges on a vaccine.

But in the United States, where at least 4.6 million people have been infected and nearly 155,000 have died, the promise of that vaccine is hampered by a vexing epidemic that long preceded Covid-19: obesity.

California Fitness Alliance 8/7/20 California Fitness Alliance 8/7/20

In Norway, Gymgoers Avoid Infections as Virus Recedes

Like many countries, Norway ordered all gyms to close in March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But unlike any other nation, Norway also funded a rigorous study to determine whether the closings were really necessary.

It is apparently the first and only randomized trial to test whether people who work out at gyms with modest restrictions are at greater risk of infection from the coronavirus than those who do not. The tentative answer after two weeks: no.

So this week, responding to the study it funded, Norway reopened all of its gyms, with the same safeguards in place that were used in the study.

Is there hope for gymgoers in other parts of the world?

“I personally think this is generalizable, with one caveat,” said Dr. Michael Bretthauer, a cancer screening expert at the University of Oslo who led the study with Dr. Mette Kalager. “There may be places where there is a lot of Covid, or where people are less inclined to follow restrictions.”