Coronavirus: Is obesity linked to COVID mortality? Here’s what the study suggests



[ad_1]

According to researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Covid-19 pandemic has been deadliest for adult populations residing in areas of the world characterized by excess body weight.

“This association is valid in all countries belonging to different income groups and is not sensitive to the median age of a population, the proportion of old people and / or the proportion of women,” said the principal researcher Hamid Beladi from UTSA.

To explain, the team analyzed plausible associations of Covid-19 mortality and excess weight in nearly 5.5 billion adults in 154 countries around the world. To identify potential patterns in the data, the researchers used advanced statistical analysis techniques.

Read more: Heart attack: lifestyle changes you can make to reduce the risk of a heart attack

Beladi said that when the proportion of overweight people in the adult population of one country is one percentage point higher than the proportion of overweight people in the adult population of a second country, it is reasonable to predict that Covid-19 mortality would be 3.5 percentage points higher in the first country than it would be in the second.

“The average person is less likely to die from Covid-19 in a country with a relatively low proportion of overweight in the adult population, all other things being equal, than he would be in a country with a relatively high proportion overweight in the adult population, ā€¯Beladi said.

[ad_2]

Source link