You may often hear of obesity as a risk factor for heart disease and type 2 diabetes. But amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that adults with excess body fat face increased risk of severe illness with COVID-19.
Compared to adults with a healthy BMI, those with obesity are:
- More likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19
- More likely to require mechanical ventilation and to be admitted to the ICU due to COVID-19
- At greater risk of dying from COVID-19
Among people in the American Heart Association nationwide registry of people hospitalized with COVID-19 who were 50 years old and younger, 85 percent either had obesity or overweight. Younger adults may not consider themselves as being at high risk for severe COVID-19, but obesity-related risk of mechanical ventilation or in-hospital death rises even more sharply among younger adults.
Obesity or excess body fat increases the severity of COVID-19 in the following ways:
- Increases receptors through which the SARS-CoV-2 virus enters cells, which may increase viral load and increase risk for progression to severe disease.
- Reduces the ability of the immune system to respond to infections.
- Often leads to chronic, low-grade inflammation. The resulting oxidative stress and “cytokine storm” of inflammation-promoting compounds circulating through the body can damage blood vessels and cause formation of dangerous clots.
- Changes lung mechanics, decreasing lung capacity and making ventilation more difficult.
- Promotes high blood pressure and diabetes. People with these pre-existing conditions are two to more than six times more likely to develop severe COVID-19 symptoms than people with no pre-existing risk factors.
- Can carry a stigma. People with obesity who have experienced weight bias or felt they were not treated with respect by healthcare providers may avoid or delay accessing health care. And that delay can have serious consequences.
Obesity Increases Risk of Cancer in Younger Adults
Risk of most cancers is strongly linked with increasing age, but cancers that once occurred mainly at older ages have been increasing in younger adults. Recent reports have particularly highlighted rising rates of obesity-related cancers in relatively young adults.
News stories about these shifts in cancer development have not always communicated them in accurate context. Cancer still occurs more often in older adults than young adults and obesity-related cancers are increasing in all age groups.
The key point is that adults under age 50, who may have considered themselves low-risk for cancer, need to recognize that cancer risk is something that warrants attention now, not later.
Whether measured by BMI, waist size or weight gain, excess body fat increases risk of at least 12 different cancers including mouth/pharynx/larynx, esophageal (adenocarcinoma), stomach (cardia type), colorectal, liver, gallbladder, pancreatic, breast (postmenopausal only), endometrial, ovarian, kidney, and prostate (advanced forms).
A recent study that analyzed data on cancer incidence in people ages 15 to 39 found significant increases in a little over a decade for 10 out of the 11 obesity-related cancers investigated.
