Researchers out of the U.K. are reporting that people who are obese are more likely to have adverse outcomes from COVID-19.
Researchers found that each excess BMI unit above 23 kg/m² was associated with an increased risk of hospitalization, admission to the ICU and death.
In the study published Thursday in the Lancet, researchers from the University of Oxford looked at data from 6,910,695 people in England who have had at least one recorded body mass index (BMI) measurement. Within this cohort, 13,503 people were admitted to hospitals in England due to COVID-19 between January and April 2020, with 1,601 ending up in intensive care units (ICUs).
BMI was also found to be a greater risk factor for patients under 40 years of age than for older patients over 80.
Gender matters
In another study published in the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases suggests that the connection may be even stronger for men than women.
The odds for severe pneumonia, need for a ventilator to help with breathing, and death all rose for men who were either moderately or severely obese, but in women those risks rose only for the severely obese.