Severely obese COVID 19 patients have 3 times risk of death says a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine,

This research shows that obesity was associated with a substantial increased risk of death from COVID-19.

However, it also found that the risk of death from COVID-19 associated with obesity is not uniform among those who are obese, but instead disproportionately affects men and people under 60 years of age.

"Although this study examines a variety of factors that may be associated with risk of death from COVID-19, our main objective in this paper was to understand risk related to obesity, and obesity-associated chronic conditions in our health care system," said lead researcher, Sara Y. Tartof, PhD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Southern California Department of Research & Evaluation.

In this study, researchers looked at the electronic health records of 6,916 Kaiser Permanente Southern California members who tested positive for COVID-19 between February 13, 2020, and May 2, 2020. The mean age of the patients was 49 years and mean body mass index, or BMI, was 30.5. A BMI of 30 to 39 is considered obese, 40 to 44 is severely obese, and 45 or higher is extremely obese.

Among the findings:

• Patients who were severely obese had nearly 3 times the risk of death and those who were extremely obese had over 4 times the risk of death from COVID-19 compared to those of normal weight.
• Severely and extremely obese people who were 60 years old and younger had a substantially higher risk of death than severely obese people over age 60.
• Severely and extremely obese men had a very high risk of death, while women had no increased risk of death associated with obesity.

Researchers were able to control for a variety of risks previously reported in the literature and did not detect increased risk of death from COVID-19 associated with Black or Latinx race/ethnicity alone.

"Our findings suggest that it is not race or ethnicity alone that increases risk of death, but rather other correlated factors, including access to health care, comorbidities, and obesity, that also play an important role," Dr. Tartof said.

She explained that the findings provide more insight into disparities in severity of COVID-19 among minority communities. Having access to a diversity of health information allows researchers to begin to disentangle the factors that may contribute to these disparities, she said.