The Real Pandemic Is Insulin Resistance by Dr. Joseph Mercola for Mercola
According to a January 2019 update by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 122 million American adults have diabetes or prediabetes1 — conditions which have been shown to increase your chances of contracting and even dying from COVID-19.2,3,4,5,6,7 As noted in an April 16, 2020, report by The New York Times:8
“Obesity may be one of the most important predictors of severe coronavirus illness, new studies say. It’s an alarming finding for the United States, which has one of the highest obesity rates in the world.”
Obesity Appears To Be Independent Risk Factor for COVID-19
After old age, obesity appears to be the most prominent risk factor for being hospitalized with COVID-19 — doubling the risk of hospitalization in patients under the age of 60 in one study9 — even if the individual has no other obesity-related health problems. A French study10,11 also found obese patients treated for COVID-19 were more likely to require mechanical ventilation.
Dr. Leora Horwitz, director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at NYU Langone who co-wrote the paper12 “Factors Associated with Hospitalization and Critical Illness Among 4,103 Patients With Covid-19 Disease In New York City” — which has not yet been peer-reviewed — told The New York Times:13
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“Obesity is more important for hospitalization than whether you have high blood pressure or diabetes, though these often go together, and it’s more important than coronary disease or cancer or kidney disease, or even pulmonary disease.”
Most COVID-19 Patients Have More Than One Comorbidity
While obesity may top the list of comorbidities — underlying conditions that make COVID-19 worse — investigations reveal most COVID-19 patients have more than one underlying health issue. A study14 looking at 5,700 New York City patients found 88% had more than one comorbidity. Only 6.3% had just one underlying health condition and 6.1% had none.
In this particular study,15 published in JAMA, high blood pressure at 53.1% beat obesity (41.7%) as the No. 1 most common comorbidity among hospitalized patients, followed by diabetes at 31.7% and coronary artery disease at 10.4%.
Co-author Karina Davidson, senior vice president for the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research told Time magazine:16
“Having serious comorbidities increases your risk … We want patients with serious chronic disease to take a special precaution and to seek medical attention early, should they start showing signs and symptoms of being infected …”
