COVIDITY OBESITY

Association Between BMI and COVID-19 Hospitalization by Age

Obesity 

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• This study evaluated whether obesity was a risk factor for hospitalization due to COVID-19 in older patients compared with younger patients. Patients younger than 50 years of age without diabetes or hypertension who were hospitalized for COVID-19 had greater BMI than those who were older than 50 years of age (P = .02). BMI inversely correlated with increasing age among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 but not among patients hospitalized for other reasons.
• Younger patients had greater BMI than older patients hospitalized for COVID-19, with or without diabetes and hypertension.

 Diabetes

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Jacqueline A. Seiglie MD, MSc

The increasing recognition that diabetes and obesity are strong risk factors for severe COVID-19 has raised the urgent need for research that addresses the intersection between metabolic disease and COVID-19. In this timely study by Bhasin et al published in Obesity, the authors investigated whether patients hospitalized with COVID-19 differed in BMI at older versus younger ages, independent of diabetes and hypertension. They conducted a cross-sectional analysis of patients hospitalized with moderate to severe COVID-19 (n = 227) and patients hospitalized without COVID-19 (n = 183). Mean BMI was higher for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 than for patients without COVID-19 (31.2 kg/m2 vs 28.1 kg/m2). Patients younger than 50 years of age had a higher mean BMI than those older than 50 years old (34.2 kg/m2 vs 29.9 kg/m2), even in the subset without diabetes or hypertension. In a linear regression analysis, BMI was inversely associated with age among people with COVID-19 but not among people without COVID-19. These findings suggest that obesity, and degree of obesity, may be particularly important among individuals younger than 50 years of age hospitalized with COVID-19.

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Abstract

This abstract is available on the publisher's site.

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OBJECTIVE

Obesity has been found to be a risk factor for hospitalization with COVID-19. We were interested in understanding whether patients hospitalized with COVID-19 differed in BMI at older versus younger ages, and if trends were independent of diabetes and hypertension.

METHODS

We performed a cross-sectional analysis of patients hospitalized with moderate to severe COVID-19 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital from March 19th , 2020 until April 4th , 2020. We compared patients hospitalized with COVID-19 above and below the age of 50, and to those hospitalized without COVID-19.

RESULTS

We found patients younger than 50 years of age hospitalized with COVID-19 without diabetes or hypertension had mean BMI greater than those older than 50 years of age, with BMI 43.1 (95%CI 34.5 - 51.7) kg/m2 vs 30.1 (95%CI 27.7 - 32.5) kg/m2 (p=0.02). Furthermore, BMI appears to inversely correlate with increasing age amongst patients hospitalized with COVID-19. We did not detect the same difference or trend for patients hospitalized without COVID-19.

CONCLUSION

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