The greatest risk of developing severe COVID-19 and being hospitalized with the disease or dying of it was in patients with the highest body mass index (BMI) scores, according to a CDC report.
About 40% of US adults are obese, which some recent reviews suggest puts them at greater risk of severe COVID-19 due to chronic inflammation, reduced immune response, or blunted treatment response.
Using data from nearly 150 000 US adults diagnosed with COVID-19 from March to December 2020, the analysis showed that half of the patients were obese and about 28% were overweight based on BMI—calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Among them, the risk of hospitalization, admission to the intensive care unit, and death were lowest among patients whose BMI was in the healthy range of 18.5 to 24.9 or just above it. The risks rose sharply as BMIs increased.