For the study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers assessed the british biobank’s knowledge of more than 330,000 British residents, taken between 2006 and 2010.
The data set includes the body mass index (BMI) of individuals, waist-hip ratio and covariates similar to age, ethnicity, alcohol consumption, smoking, and physical activity.
More data were also available on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and a blood pattern containing disease biomarkers, cholesterol, cholesterol attached to high-density lipoproteins, glycidic hemoglobin and C-reactive protein.
The researchers then connected this with Public Health England’s knowledge of hospitalizations in COVID-19 covering the era from March 16, 2020 to April 26, 2020. During this era, tests were limited to other people with symptoms in the hospital, so the test represents a severe COVID-19.
They found that another 640 people (0.2%), of the UK Biobank’s giant population pattern, had been admitted to the hospital after contracting the virus and discovered a link between hospitalization and a higher BMI. A BMI of 25 to 30 is obese and a BMI of 30 or more is obese.
Researchers found that others with a BMI greater than 25 had a hospitalization threat of more than 40% after regard for age and sex, two independent coVID-19 threat points.
For those in the obese category, BMI 30 plus, the threat 70% higher. And those in the severe obesity category (BMI above 35), the chances of hospitalization more than doubled.
Principal Professor Mark Hamer (UCL Surgery – Interventional Science) said: “In statistical models, we found that there was a linear accumulation in the threat of hospitalization in COVID-19 with accumulation in BMI.
“This is evident for obese people, even slightly, up to severe obesity, compared to those of general weight. A similar result was discovered for the waist/hip ratio.”
The effects are found in previous, smaller-scale studies that have proven the prospective link between obesity and the transition to extensive care due to coronavirus infection.
Professor Hamer added: “Since more than two-thirds of Westernized society are obese or obese, this potentially presents a primary threat to severe COVID-19 infection and may have political implications.”
The research, conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh, also attempted to identify the imaginable biological mechanisms that are causing this high risk.
Biomarkers of the disease, namely cholesterol attached to high-density lipoproteins (“good” fats in the blood) and hemoglobin (marker of blood glucose regulation), increase the most likely hospitalization rate.