"Obesity and COVID‐19: A global perspective" Topic

Individuals with obesity and COVID‐19: A global perspective on the epidemiology and biological relationships

The linkage of individuals with obesity and COVID‐19 is controversial and lacks systematic reviews. After a systematic search of the Chinese and English language literature on COVID‐19, 75 studies were used to conduct a series of meta‐analyses on the relationship of individuals with obesity–COVID‐19 over the full spectrum from risk to mortality.

A systematic review of the mechanistic pathways for COVID‐19 and individuals with obesity is presented. Pooled analysis show individuals with obesity were more at risk for COVID‐19 positive, >46.0% higher (OR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.30–1.65; p < 0.0001); for hospitalization, 113% higher (OR = 2.13; 95% CI, 1.74–2.60; p < 0.0001); for ICU admission, 74% higher (OR = 1.74; 95% CI, 1.46–2.08); and for mortality, 48% increase in deaths (OR = 1.48; 95% CI, 1.22–1.80; p < 0.001).

A major concern is that vaccines will be less effective for the individuals with obesity.

link

It's good to look at that kind of thing, but it's kind of a gimme. Obesity basically makes you unhealthy (not a scientific term), which makes you generally more susceptible to health problems and less responsive to problem mitigations.

Not surprising, but the value of the detail in the meta analysis will help with mitigating measures.

That said, you have to be careful with meta analyses. The pirate in this pic:

is obese. It's me, and by height and weight standards I am just inside the obese category. Possibly not if you use other methods, but in a meta analysis, you can't reevaluate the source data. Also, maybe someone else's standard (another country) might make me not obese. Or obeser.

That doesn't mean meta analyses are useless or you have to be skeptical. You just have to be careful to understand the context, which is usually very complex, since you are combining things from lots of different sources.

There are a lot of different concerns like this for control measures. A lot of them, like obesity, are sensitive topics, which makes it difficult to implement proactive control measures.

I hadn't seen this study. Thanks.

The next necessary question would be teasing out whether it was the obesity itself that caused this correlation or if the underlying causes of the obesity caused the correlation. *Or* was it things that result from obesity (lack of exercise, diabetes) that caused the correlation. They started down these paths, but it's a messy question.

And while it is certainly a concern that the vaccine will be less effective in obese people, that's not a concern you can do anything about. You still vaccinate obese people. A more useful question is whether obese people who contract COVID-19 need different treatment.

Anyway, I'm sure they'll sort it out. In the meant time wear your mask and exercise. I mean, not simultaneously, but do them both.

I think checking rates of death for other illnesses and diseases for the same (in this case "obesity") and determine if there are any differences in prevalence.