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Airwaves

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PHYSICAL ACTIVITY REDUCES MORTALITY IN COPD
In a previous Thorax paper, Garcia-Aymerich and colleagues showed that Spanish patients with moderate to severe COPD who had levels of physical activity equivalent to 1 hour daily had a lower risk of hospital admission for COPD exacerbations. In this month’s Thorax the same group report a 20 year follow up study of 2386 COPD patients from Copenhagen. For the first time they show that patients with low, moderate, and high levels of physical activity have a lower risk of all-cause mortality and respiratory mortality than patients with very low activity. In this study, a relatively low level of physical activity—equivalent to walking or cycling for 2 hours/week or more—was associated with a 30–40% reduction in the risk of hospital admission due to COPD and respiratory mortality. The authors discuss some of the mechanisms underlying this observation including peripheral muscle function and systemic inflammation. Activity is also reduced during exacerbations . . . [Full text of this article]

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