One of the opening sessions at this year's European and International Congress on Obesity (ECOICO 2020) held online this year (1-4 September) will discuss the clear relationship between obesity and the severity of COVID-19 disease.
One of the opening sessions at this year's European and International Congress on Obesity (ECOICO 2020) held online this year (1-4 September) will discuss the clear relationship between obesity and the severity of COVID-19 disease. The session is presented by FrançoisPattou, Professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lille, and head of the Department of General and Endocrine Surgery at Lille University Hospital, France.
In his presentation, Prof Pattou will discuss French data from the earlier part of the epidemic (some of it published in the journal Obesity) that rapidly revealed that patients with obesity were facing more serious disease and a higher mortality risk than patients without obesity. Furthermore, he will discuss how areas of France with higher prevalence of obesity appeared to take longer to release their lockdown restrictions (because the virus was still circulating more in those areas), by showing a map comparing the two situations.
At the beginning of April, both general and intensive care admissions for COVID-19 began to rise sharply in Lille University Hospital, and across France and other European countries. An analysis conducted by Pattou and colleagues included 124 intensive care unit (ICU) admissions with COVID-19, and compared them with 306 patients who had been in ICU for other reasons, without COVID-19.
The data showed that among ICU patients with COVID-19, around half had obesity (BMI above 30), with a quarter having severe obesity (BMI of 35 or above). Most of the remaining patients (around 40%) were overweight, with only around 10% of patients in the healthy weight range (BMI 25 or under). Among the non-COVID-19 ICU patients, the story was very different: a quarter had obesity or severe obesity; a further quarter were overweight, and around half fell into the healthy weight range.
Read more at European Association for the Study of Obesity
Photo Credit: cocoparisienne via Pixabay
