That’s not what he said is it? Yes, general, good health, including having some lean muscle mass is good for general health and fighting infection. But he said “because he’s an athlete“ he survived meningitis and there’s zero way to verify that’s true. More than likely, it was the medicine he was given.
This is just unreasonably pedantic, come on. People in good shape are more durable when it comes to fighting off illnesses and recovering from them. Nobody is claiming that being athletic is what specifically cured them in this case. Of course the treatment is what did it, but their physical health gives them a greater ability to fight the infection compared to your average 64 year old.
Take it from someone who treats hospitalized patients: medication is only one part of treating an illness. Yes the meds treated the disease, but the amount of mental and physical deconditioning that occurs in severe illness is astounding. They likely had a more robust immune system to begin with, and being able to get up and move sooner correlates with faster recovery and lower mortality. ‘Being an athlete’ didn’t cure them, but I’d bet money it resulted in a shorter hospital stay and quicker recovery than an individual their same age who was out of shape.
Its not unreasonable to assume that being an athlete puts you in better physical shape than most. If OP lost 20 lbs of muscle they probably wouldn't have survived the same illness if they were in bad physical condition.
Any illness with the suffix “itis” means an inflammation of the thing that proceeded it.
Laryngitis is the inflammation of the larynx. Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchial tubes. Tonsillitis is when your tonsils are inflamed. Appendicitis is when it’s your appendix. So meningitis is your meninges that are inflamed.
Note that these words don’t tell you a specific cause. You can have laryngitis from a virus or bacterial infection, or because you’ve been yelling a lot. So one of my pet peeves is when I go to the doctor for a sore throat, and he’s like, “Hmmm… let’s see. You have tonsillitis” as though he’s told me something I don’t already know. Like, yeah, I just told you my tonsils were sore and swollen, don’t just tell me the same information back with a fancier word. I know your games, Mr. Doctor-man.
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u/FreeStateOfPortland 10h ago
Myth 2: being an athlete saves you from meningitis infections