Both underweight and obesity are associated with an increased risk of
corona virus disease 2019(COVID-19) severity
Abstract
Background: As COVID-19 evolved into a global pandemic. Increasing
numbers of reports have linked obesity to more severe COVID-19 illness
and death (1-3). However, almost all the studies focused on the
proportion of people entering the ICU or mortality. Is obesity also
associated with severity of pneumonia in common pneumonia patients? How
about underweight patients? The answer is lack. So, our research below
will answer the question. Methods: We collected and analyzed
epidemiological, demographic, clinical, and laboratory data from 193
confirmed cases of COVID-19 at Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, between
January 1, 2020, and March 13, 2020. They were followed up until April
15, 2020. Results: Among these patients, 5.70% were underweight,
58.03% were normal weight, 27.98% were overweight and 8.29% were
obese. underweight patients were more likely to have headache (P=0.029)
Obese patients were more likely to experience a decline in lymphocyte
counts(P=0.042), an increase in CRP(P=0.020), bilateral multiple
mottling and groundglass opacity (P=0.008). Besides, the proportion of
patients receiving human immunoglobulin+systematic corticosteroids
treatment is the highest among the obese group compared with other BMI
groups. After adjusting for potential confounders, Underweight patients
had 6.483-fold higher(P=0.012),and obesity patients showed 5.965-fold
higher odds developing acute lung injury(ALI) than normal weight
patients(P=0.022). Underweight patients were 3.255 times more likely
than normal-weight patients to develop secondary infections (P=0.041).
Conclusions: Our study shows that in patients with common pneumonia,
both underweight and obese people tend to develop ALI compared with
normal weight patients.