Obesity is linked to a greater risk of hospital admission from severe Covid-19, a study has suggested.
Scientists examined the potential connection between being seriously overweight and being admitted to intensive care because of complications from coronavirus infection.
Researchers from University College London and the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh drew on data from the UK Biobank study, collected between 2006 and 2010, covering 334,329 people with an average age of 56.
The study investigated people’s body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio as measures of their levels of obesity and analysed it in relation to cases of coronavirus hospital admissions recorded by Public Health England from March 16 up to April 26.
Around 0.2 per cent, or 640 people, from the large population sample ended up in hospital after contracting the virus.
Researchers found “there was a linear increase in the risk of Covid-19 with increasing BMI, that became evident from modestly elevated weight… to stage II obesity compared to normal weight”.
They warned: “Since over two-thirds of Westernised society are overweight or obese, this potentially presents a major risk factor for severe Covid-19 infection and may have implications for policy.”
Last month Prime Minister Boris Johnson launched a new strategy to tackle obesity while acknowledging that he was “way overweight” when he was admitted to intensive care in April as he battled Covid-19 and was put on oxygen.
In further analyses, the scientists found that “impaired glucose and lipid metabolism” – how the body use types of sugar and fat – may contribute to the link between obesity and severe Covid-19.
The study follows a warning from Public Health England last month which stated that being overweight or obese can dramatically increase the risk of hospitalisation and death from coronavirus.
