If there is one thing that has been made clear during the COVID-19 pandemic it’s that we value human life. And appropriately so! Our life is something to cherish and protect as much as we can.
As of November 15, 2020, over 250,000 Americans have died as a result of COVID-19 (1). That’s tragic. It’s sad. It’s not fair. I think it’s worth pointing out that we have appropriately gone through significant measures to keep the number “that low”. Let’s keep working hard as a nation to prevent as many deaths as possible.
Let’s also work much much harder to change these numbers. In 2017, 647,000 Americans died from cardiovascular disease (2). Additionally, 146,000 died from cerebrovascular accidents (strokes) (2). Rounding down, that’s 790,000 American lives lost! 790,000! In one year! And these numbers aren’t new. They’re about the same, but slightly increasing, every single year.
The worst part, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% could have been prevented! (3). 80%! That means 630,000 American deaths could be prevented EVERY YEAR!
How is it preventable you might ask? Pretty simple, health lifestyle choices.
- Sleep well.
- Eat well (that includes avoiding drugs).
- Exercise well.
- There are some other areas of health that should be considered. See our 6 Pillars of Health blog for more details.
Disclaimer: we understand that there are many barriers making those three things difficult for people, but the evidence is so strong supporting those areas of life, we have to fight daily to get better at them. Between your Primary Care Physician, Physical Therapist, Registered Dietician, and Mental Health Therapist you can have an excellent team to help you access the resources you need. For more motivation on how to gradually get better, check out our Life Hack: Just Get a Little Bit Better Every Day blog for great visualizations.
In case you need other reasons to exercise in addition to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease prevention, check out the other references listed below demonstrating how exercise reduces risk for depression, metabolic syndrome, infection susceptibility, and all cause mortality (4-7).
For more info on why these areas are important, recommendations concerning them, and professionals to help you improve, check out our 6 Pillars of Health blog.
For more resources locally and online related to these areas during the COVID-19 pandemic, check out our COVID-19 Health, Wellness, and Fitness Resources blog.
Human life is valuable. Every single one. Let’s do everything we can to save and improve the quality of each and every life.
For COVID-19, we must play defense!
- Wear a mask
- Physically distance >6 feet
- Limit social gatherings.
Experts are working on an offense for it as well in the form of a vaccine.
For Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Disease, we must play offense!
- Sleep well
- Eat well
- Exercise well
Again, see our 6 Pillars of Health blog linked above for more details on all of those.
Let’s play defense and offense together and let’s get better at it every single day! Let’s continue to fight against COVID-19 as well as the other preventable causes of death that have been taking lives for too long.
Stronger Together,
Dr. Dane Happeny, PT, DPT, OCS, CF-L1
Doctor of Physical Therapy
Board Certified Orthopedic Specialist
CrossFit Level 1 Trainer
References
- 2020 COVID-19 Statistics. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Date Accessed 11/15/2020.
- Heron M. Deaths: Leading causes for 2017. National Vital St2017;atistics Reports. 2019;68(6):1-76. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_06-508.pdf
- WHO. The challenge of cardiovascular disease – quick statistics, 2016. Available at: http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases/cardiovascular-diseases/data-and-statistics (accessed 10 October 2016).
- Gordon BR, McDowell CP, Hallgren M. Association of efficacy of resistance exercise training with depressive symptoms: meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis of randomized clinical trials. JAMA Psychiatry. 2018;75(6):566-576. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.0572. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2680311
- Bakker EA, et al. Association of Resistance Exercise, Independent of and Combined With Aerobic Exercise, With the Incidence of Metabolic Syndrome. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017;92(8):1214-1222. doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2017.02.018. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5546793/
- Infection Susceptibility: The Lancet (2020) Systematic Review and Meta Analysis of 55 publications: “Regular physical activity should be promoted to decrease the risk of community acquired infection and infectious mortality disease, strengthen the potency of immunisation programme and lessen the impact of pandemics such as the recent COVID-19” AMA citation coming
- Zhao M, Veeranki SP, Magnussen CG, Xi B. Recommended physical activity and all cause and cause specific mortality in US adults: prospective cohort study. BMJ. 2020;370:m203. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m2031. https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/370/bmj.m2031.full.pdf