So far it is known that older people and people with previous illnesses in particular are more likely to develop Covid-19. An American study now shows that obesity could be even more dangerous than asthma or COPD.
It is well known that being overweight can be harmful to health. Researchers at New York’s NYU Langone Medical Center have now investigated how obesity can affect coronavirus disease and have come up with surprising results.
Case analysis with more than 4,000 New York City patients
The scientists performed a cross-sectional analysis on patients who were confirmed to be Covid 19 cases in New York between March 1 and April 2, 2020. Hospital stays, severe courses and deaths were particularly considered.
The researchers analyzed a total of 4,103 cases, of which 1,999 were hospitalized. About half (981 patients) were discharged home. 292, or about 14.6 percent, died or were released into the hospice. Of 445 patients who needed mechanical ventilation, 162 (36.4 percent) died. Almost 40 percent of the patients who had to be hospitalized were obese.
High body mass index increases hospital risk
According to the study, the risk of going to hospital for Covid 19 disease increases in people who are 65 years of age or older, in those with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 40 and in people with Heart failure. Patients were more obese (39.8 versus 14.4 percent) than Covid-19 patients who were not admitted to the hospital. Obesity thus endangered patients about as much as heart failure, but significantly more than lung or cancer diseases.
According to this, obesity is one of the risk factors for a severe course of the coronavirus in addition to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. As the Ärzteblatt reports, obesity also increases the risk of developing a life-threatening course of Covid-19, being cared for in the intensive care unit, or even dying.
Why do overweight people develop Covid-19 more severely?
So far, it is unclear why obese patients are more likely to have a severe course of Covid-19. The scientists suspect that the inflammatory reactions that occur with obesity could play a role. In severe Covid-19 courses, this often results in an uncontrolled overshoot of the immune system, which can lead to circulatory shock and multiple organ failure.
Added to this is the fact that being overweight also leads to a lower immune system defense against other infections and people who are very overweight are more prone to infections anyway.
In addition, according to numerous intensive care physicians according to “Welt”, a high fat concentration, especially in the abdomen, as is particularly common and pronounced in men, can compress the diaphragm and lungs and make mechanical ventilation more difficult.
1,101 patients in the American study were obese. The number was thus slightly below the value for the entire USA, where more than a third are very overweight. The researchers explain this difference by saying that “rather higher income groups” are treated in the clinics examined. In the United States, poorer sections of the population are particularly affected by obesity.
Other researchers report similar results
According to the study, about half of the overweight patients had to be artificially ventilated. A German study by the University Hospital RWTH Aachen came to similar results. According to this study, patients who suffered from acute shortness of breath or had to be artificially ventilated with Covid 19 disease were overweight in 83 percent of cases. In this study, 50 patients with severe course from the district of Heinsberg were examined.
As reported by “The World,” Dr. med. Karsten Schmidts, specialist in anesthesia and senior consultant in the anaesthesiological intensive care unit at the University Hospital Essen, that the results of the study correspond with his observations. “Most of the patients who come to the intensive care unit with severe Covid courses are actually overweight to obese. The normal weight group is outnumbered,” said the doctor. At the same time, he warned to jump to conclusions from the study. Not everyone who is overweight is automatically at risk.
Reports from other countries also confirm the study by the New York doctors. A French team of researchers observed that more than three quarters of the Covid patients who received intensive care between late February and early April were obese to severely obese, with a BMI over 35. The researchers also found that ventilation was necessary increased with the amount of the BMI.
Doctors from Wuhan also showed that more than 88 percent of those who died from Covid-19 had a BMI of over 25 and were therefore overweight to obese.
Obesity as a risk factor: surprising result
“The chronic disease most closely associated with a severe Covid infection is obesity – and at a substantially higher risk ratio than any cardiovascular or lung disease,” says the US study.
Christopher Petrilli, the lead author of the study, said in an interview with “Die Welt”: “It was actually a rather surprising result for us.” It is also important that obesity not only leads to a severe course in combination with other risk factors, but is also an “important, independent and single factor”.
Young people with obesity are also more severely affected
A second study by the researchers looked at patients under 60 with obesity. Here the connection is even clearer. Obese younger people had to be transferred to hospital and intensive care twice as often as normal-weight people of the same age.
In the United States, African Americans, Hispanics and white Americans in rural, socio-economically disadvantaged regions are particularly affected by obesity. According to the Robert Koch Institute, around a quarter of adults in Germany are obese.
Obesity: How to calculate your BMI
To determine if you are overweight or even obese, you can easily calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI). To do this, you need to divide your weight by your height in meters squared.
You can find a simple BMI calculator here.
A healthy BMI is between 19 and 25. With a lower BMI, you are most likely underweight, if your BMI is over 25, you are overweight. Someone is considered obese if their BMI is over 30.
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