TOPLINE:

Maintaining regular exercise reduced the risk for mortality in interstitial lung disease (ILD); exercise maintainers had a lower risk than nonexercisers. The benefits were more pronounced in patients with nonidiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) ILD, a lower BMI, or a higher economic status.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Korean National Health Insurance claims-based database to evaluate the impact of exercise maintenance on mortality in patients with ILD.
• They included 3850 patients with ILD whose physical activity was assessed during two consecutive health screening examinations, with a median follow-up duration of 7.2 years.
• The patients were divided into three groups:
  • Exercise maintainers, who exercised at both examinations (n = 1239; 69.7% men).
  • Exercise nonmaintainers, who exercised at only one of the two examinations (n = 1377; 60.7% men).
  • Nonexercisers, who did not exercise at either examination (n = 1234; 58.1% men).
• The primary outcome was the incidence of and risk for all-cause mortality compared across groups.

TAKEAWAY:

• The incidence rate of mortality was 341.28 vs 401.81 per 10,000 person-years in exercisers vs nonexercisers, reflecting an 18% lower risk (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR], 0.82; 95% CI, 0.72-0.94).
• The risk for mortality was 22% lower among exercise maintainers (AHR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.66-0.92) and 15% lower among exercise nonmaintainers (AHR, 0.85; 95% CI, 0.73-0.99) than among nonexercisers.
• Among patients with non-IPF ILD and IPF, exercisers had lower mortality rates than nonexercisers (P = .021 and P = .838, respectively).
• Patients with a lower BMI and those with a higher economic status had a greater exercise-related reduction in the risk for mortality than their counterparts (P = .043 and P = .037, respectively).

IN PRACTICE:

“Among individuals with ILD, the risk of death was inversely correlated with the level of exercise adherence, cautiously suggesting the importance of exercise maintenance in individuals with ILD,” the authors of the study wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Bo-Guen Kim, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, and Min Gu Kang, Research Institute of Clinical Medicine of Jeonbuk National University, Biomedical Research Institute of Jeonbuk National University Hospital, Jeonju, Republic of Korea. It was published online on August 13, 2025, in Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease.

LIMITATIONS:

The study was subject to healthy user bias, as it included only individuals who underwent health screening, and to additional selection bias from the requirement of two consecutive examinations. Reliance on International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision codes to identify ILD and comorbidities may have introduced misclassification. Furthermore, key clinical data such as those on lung function, imaging, treatment, ILD control status, and time since diagnosis were unavailable.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea grant funded by the Korean government and by the research fund of Hanyang University. The authors reported having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.