Obesity, Inflammation, and Mortality in COVID-19: An Observational Study from the Public Health Care System of New York City

Abstract

Severe obesity increases the risk for negative outcomes in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Our objectives were to investigate the effect of BMI on in-hospital outcomes in our New York City Health and Hospitals’ ethnically diverse population, further explore this effect by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and timing of admission, and, given the relationship between COVID-19 and hyperinflammation, assess the concentrations of markers of systemic inflammation in different BMI groups. A retrospective study was conducted in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in the public health care system of New York City from 1 March 2020 to 31 October 2020. A total of 8833 patients were included in this analysis (women: 3593, median age: 62 years). The median body mass index (BMI) was 27.9 kg/m2. Both overweight and obesity were independently associated with in-hospital death. The association of overweight and obesity with death appeared to be stronger in men, younger patients, and individuals of Hispanic ethnicity. We did not observe higher concentrations of inflammatory markers in patients with obesity as compared to those without obesity. In conclusion, overweight and obesity were independently associated with in-hospital death. Obesity was not associated with higher concentrations of inflammatory markers.

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“…Risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, older age and obesity have been associated with worse prognosis in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Among these, hypertension is particularly important due to its high prevalence and global burden, however, the mechanisms of this association have not been fully clarified [1][2][3][4][5].…”

Calcium, Magnesium, and Zinc Supplementation during Pregnancy: The Additive Value of Micronutrients on Maternal Immune Response after SARS-CoV-2 Infection

“…COVID-19 is associated with significant lung and cardiac dysfunction, and magnesium is required for proper lung and heart function. Along with obesity, other coexisting conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and, most significantly, advanced age are associated with increased COVID-19 severity, possibly due to an underlying chronic inflammatory state or a lower threshold for the development of organ dysfunction as a result of the immune response [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. All of the above-mentioned illnesses, as well as old age and a chronic inflammatory state, have been linked to a deficient magnesium level.…”

Obesity and Infection: What Have We Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic

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