Overweight risk exaggerated?

[HopelessLayout]

Two facts:

1. 60% of CV-19 patients in intensive care in hospitals are overweight. (NHS)

1. 63.8% of adults in England are overweight. (Public Health England)

As the overall proportion of those seriously ill and overweight is lower than the overall proportion of the general public that is overweight, does that therefore mean that being overweight actually helps protect you if you become ill from CV-19?

I have a very high BMI. I don’t know the exact number off hand but I do know it’s over 40. I don’t have high blood pressure, or diabetes (not even pre-diabetes), and I don’t get out of breath when exercising or going up and down stairs. I go slowly down the stairs because the last time I tried going really fast, my size nine feet landed half off the next step and I fell. But anyhow, I digress.

I know that I have no other issues because I’ve been checked. Everything is within normal levels. I’m using Covid-19 as the kick up the bum I need to lose weight, however at the moment I’m concerned about what I can and cannot do. I’ve suffered from anxiety in the past and all that’s going on now just makes me want to stay inside or in the back garden. I’ve only read that anybody with a very high BMI has died. Have there been many people with a very high BMI who had Covid-19 (tested positive, not just presumed they had it) and had a very mild, pneumonia-free case?

Atlanta I don't know about obesity but certainly there have been people with other conditions that make you vulnerable like diabetes or asthma who have had a mild case. Tom Hanks was one with diabetes.

It is a factor, Jenny Harries the deputy CMO said so yesterday in the government briefing. They were discussing the statistics and BAME and she said that from the data analysed thus far, that it appeared that as well as the BAME data, they found that a higher percentage of those worse affected were male, and also that obesity was a factor.

i heard a doctor from the US, sorry cannot remember name, on Radio 5 live late last night. he has studied the effects of obesity for several years, and said its link to the covid-19 is much greater than imagined.
the presenter was stephen nolan, who said he himself was fat, so he questioned him closely about it.
the good news was that with even small changes to diet, improvements could be made. the doctor said he had not realised how much sugar he had been consuming before he really looked into it. he urged people to eat simple less processed foods, and esp avoid low-fat versions. he also said go for things with fewer ingredients.
i found it interesting. i am about a stone heavier than i should be, on small frame.

Metabolic heath seems to be a factor (diabetes, pre-diabetes, high blood pressure) You can have metabolically healthy overweight people, and then also TOFI people who are in the OK BMI but have visceral fat and sometimes diabetes...so might be part of it as well. I mean apart from the physical issue of extra weight on the body.

TOFI= Thin on the outside fat on the inside.

Aldo with BAME, I read the issue there can be they tend to have diabetes at much lower levels of BMI unfortunately, and heart disease. So they are more vulnerable to those conditions at lower weights as well

It would be helpful to understand that ICU data on age matched basis against the rest of the population.
And, as others have said, ICU admission is not a great "hard end point". Deaths would be better.

Also, Vitamin D deficiency can be more common in overweight / obese see www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2019.00103/full

Might be something to be aware of - and I guess something which could be corrected with taking a supplement

I thought I read 48% of deaths in UK were obese, but will check

Could you source that @orange. Would be significant as 29% of adults are obese

digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet-england-2019

I am trying, thought I saw it on BBC site, should not have mentioned before verifying. I will try and check again

I find it odd if a majority of fatalities had obesity as a factor or even just by coincidence, purely because if the majority are elderly, they tend to be slim or even underweight. I don't think I have ever seen an obese 80 year old.

I find it odd if a majority of fatalities had obesity as a factor or even just by coincidence, purely because if the majority are elderly, they tend to be slim or even underweight. I don't think I have ever seen an obese 80 year old.

I came across an article the other day that suggested obesity was a significant risk factor specifically in the under 60s:

www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-15/coronavirus-risk-higher-for-obese-people

I think obesity has been underplayed as a risk factor because people are worried about fat shaming, which is a really awful situation

However, it’s not obesity as such that is the risk, it’s metabolic health. You can be ‘slim’ and still have bad metabolic health too, it’s just much more likely you have poor metabolic health if you are obese.

There are many many Doctors out there raising this but they are largely being ignored.

One doctor who is managing to get some traction is here on a BBC interview www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08b07dr

The message is very simple...you can significantly change your metabolic Heath in a matter of weeks if you cut sugar and refined carbohydrate out of your diet completely. These foods inflame your body, and an already inflamed body is less likely to fight off the virus.

I’ve noticed this from purely watching the news.
The elderly in hospital with Covid 19 are mostly slim.
The non-elderly are overweight and in particular I’ve noticed they seem to be mostly male with a huge gut.
The BBC have been following a 39 year old guy who got quite poorly with it. Don’t think he was ventilated but definitely had serious breathing problems. It showed him in his hospital bed wearing just a hospital gown and his beer belly was massive.
When they show those pictures in intensive care but blur out the faces, you can clearly see the person is huge.
I do hope this whole thing means that the vast number of overweight and obese Brits will finally take responsibility for their health.
We’ve lost all sense of how to eat for health over the last few decades. We consume as a nation an obscene amount of sugar and processed food. With the result being obesity, which causes many (not all) cases of diabetes, hypertension, heart problems etc.

I hope the government start to prioritise some health education in schools instead of pushing their ever-increasing ridiculous academic agenda on our children. I hope they ban McDonald’s, KFC, BK etc etc (ok I know they won’t do that in reality but I wish they would!). I hope they start a campaign to educate people on how to properly eat.

I don’t get out of breath when exercising

This would be unusual for people in your weight category. Generally the heavier you are the faster you struggle to breath when exercising.

So for example put someone with a Bmi of 23 on a treadmill, and someone with a bmi of forty, both in good health, on a treadmill and ask them to run, the heavier person will struggle with breathlessness much much faster than healthy weight person. The pressure on their lungs would be much higher.

Either you’re incredibly fit, or potentially you exercise gently.

This is anecdata, but my dad is currently out of retirement and working on a Covid ICU and according to him, the majority of severe cases theyre seeing are in people who are significantly overweight/obese.

Isn't it partly because of you are very overweight you will also generally have lots of underlying health conditions.

Surely the point of exercising is so that you get out of breath. How do you exercise and not get breathless? I I i go for. 10k run I am definitely breathless.

Obesity has been a ticking time bomb for a long time in this country. It I am probably fat shaming by saying this. .

The message is very simple...you can significantly change your metabolic Heath in a matter of weeks if you cut sugar and refined carbohydrate out of your diet completely. These foods inflame your body, and an already inflamed body is less likely to fight off the virus.

This is very interesting. I have a BMI of 30, and have been worried about this.

I've been doing Michael Moseleys Blood Sugar Diet successfully so far for the past two weeks, no sugar or processed carbs and I've lost 8 pounds so am really hoping I've achieved lower inflammation.

Just letting others know what I've tried and a potentially good route.

People who are overweight need more vitamin D so vit D deficiency in overweight people could be a factor in increasing risk.
I get my level tested every year via an online site. They advise how much vit D to take based on the results. Guidelines are 1000iu per 25 kg body weight for maintenance. A higher dose is needed if vit D deficient.
My levels have stayed consistently good based on this.

The intensive care figures [[https://www.icnarc.org/About/Latest-News/2020/04/10/Report-On-5578-Patients-Critically-Ill-With-Covid-19 downloadable here]] are (so far) different for COVID compared to viral pneumonia.

Of people in critical care – 56.9% of people with BMI more than 40 die, whereas only 15.3% die with viral pneumonia. The difference is greater than with people with BMIs under 25, in that group 46% die with CV compared to 23.5% with viral pneumonia.

There is a clear significant difference BUT that does not mean that all obese people will die with CV. Even in the people in ITU, 43.1% survive and that will be much higher in the people who are mildly and moderately ill.

No it’s not
Why do you think there’s all this chat about proning?

I tend to go for it on a bike, or an elliptical machine. I don’t run as I’m incredibly clumsy (see my comment about tripping on the stairs). Next time I’m on a bike I’ll try harder.

It’s also apparently unusual for someone of my weight to have normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar, normal cardiovascular function, and normal blood lipids, yet here I am.