Even mild obesity linked to severe Covid-19, death

LONDON: Being even mildly obese could put a person at risk of developing severe COVID-19 and dying, according to a study, foreign media reported.

In a paper published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, researchers assessed data on 482 COVID-19 patients who were admitted to the Sant'Orsola Hospital in Bologna, a city in hard-hit northern Italy. Just over a fifth of the patients had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or over, meaning they were obese.

A BMI of between 30 to 34.9 was linked to an increased risk of respiratory failure, and ICU admission. A BMI of 35 "dramatically increases the risk of death," the authors wrote. Of the patients with obesity, 52 percent had respiratory failure, 36 percent were admitted to the ICU, a quarter needed a ventilator to breathe, and 30 percent died within 30 days of their symptoms first appearing.