On Obesity and COVID-19
Photo by i yunmai
This week's comments address obesity; its relationship to COVID-19, its global prevalence and the need for better prevention.
Dariush Mozaffarian, cardiologist and dean of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy said in “The other pandemic worsening coronavirus? Obesity" (PRI/The World June 12, 2020):
“If someone has moderate obesity … they’re about four-fold more likely to be hospitalized. If they have severe obesity … they have a six-fold higher risk of being hospitalized
“About half of all American adults have diabetes or pre-diabetes, and three in four American adults are overweight or obese ... So very few of us are actually healthy, and COVID-19 is basically like pouring gasoline on a smouldering fire.
“People think that if you’re obese, it takes years and years to deal with that and get healthy. But many well-controlled trials have shown that if you’re overweight or obese and have poor metabolic health, and you just change what you eat … within four to six weeks, [there are] dramatic improvements in many metabolic parameters.”
David Kass, head of the Institute of CardioScience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said in “Obesity a Major Risk Factor for COVIS-19 Hospitalization” (Johns Hopkins Magazine: June 1, 2020):
“You need to treat obesity seriously as a pre-existing condition that increases your risks for COVID-19 ... if you're obese and you're 25, or 35, or 45, you have a risk factor and you should be appropriately careful.
“As physicians, we've become somewhat inured to obesity in our country since there's so many people with BMIs of 35 and up and you start thinking of it almost as normal. But this doesn't take away the medical realities.
"With COVID-19, it means your patients with high BMIs may need more medical attention ... These patients need to be considered as others with pre-existing risk factors."
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in “Hospitalization Rates and Characteristics of Patients Hospitalized with Laboratory-Confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019” (April 17, 2020):
“Among patients aged 18–49 years, obesity was the most prevalent underlying condition, followed by chronic lung disease (primarily asthma) and diabetes mellitus.
“Among patients aged 50–64 years, obesity was most prevalent, followed by hypertension and diabetes mellitus"
The following chart presents several countries and their respective obesity levels (percentage of population as of 2016). The highest, the US at 36.2%, the lowest, Japan at 4.3%.
OUR TAKE
Additional analysis of COVID-19 cases may strengthen the linkage between 1) COVID-19 hospitalization risk and high-obesity in countries such as the US and 2) lower-obesity and lower COVID hospitalization risk in countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
Global obesity has tripled since the 1970s, making more people vulnerable to COVID-19 and other health risks such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and certain cancers. As communities focus on COVID-19 re-opening efforts, health risk prevention should be incorporated into the process.
While age, ethnicity and population density can also heighten COVID-19 risk, obesity is a risk that individuals can control by healthier eating and exercise.