High BMI linked to COVID-19 severity in African Americans
The analysis included African American patients with confirmed COVID-19 who presented to an academic hospital between March 12 and April 9, 2020. In total, the study included 158 participants, 61% of whom were women. The participants’ average age was 57.
The study recorded whether the patients had required treatment in an intensive care unit (ICU), using this to define whether they had experienced severe COVID-19. The participants’ general health was identified retrospectively, by looking at their medical records.
Among the patients with severe COVID-19, 85% required intubation and mechanical ventilation due to respiratory failure.
In total, 37% of the patients receiving ICU care died. However, the actual figure may be higher, as more than one-fifth of the patients were still receiving ventilation in the ICU when the analysis took place.
The researchers found that the patients who required ICU treatment were typically older, with an average age of 62 years. They also had a higher average BMI: 36.5 vs. 31.9.
In addition, the analysis showed that hypertension and lung disease were predictors of severe COVID-19.
The team notes that obesity is only just beginning to be linked with COVID-19 and recommend that further research explores the association. At the end of June, the CDCTrusted Source updated their guidance to report that anyone with a BMI of 30 or above has a risk of severe disease.
In a commentary on the present study, Dr. Keith C. Ferdinand, a professor of medicine and chair of preventive cardiology at Tulane’s School of Medicine emphasizes that “Instead of stigmatization of black adults with obesity, this pandemic, a hopefully once-in-a-century health crisis, is a clarion call to decrease and eventually eliminate long-standing health disparities and underlying adverse societal structural factors.”
