The Kovid-1p epidemic has once again blamed the epidemic of obesity, revealing that obesity is no longer a disease that only causes long-term harm but can have severe devastating effects.
New studies and data confirm doctors’ suspicions that the virus is taking advantage of a disease that is affecting our current U.S. population. The healthcare system is unable to come under control.
In most recent news, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 73 percent of hospitalized nurses from COVID-19 had obesity. In addition, a recent study found that obesity can interfere with the effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine.
I am an obesity specialist and clinical physician working on the front lines of obesity in primary care at the University of Virginia Health System. In the past, I have always warned my patients that obesity can take years in their lives. Now, more than ever, this warning has become verifiable.
More damage than believed
Physicians initially believed that being obese only increased the risk of getting sick with COVID-19, not the risk of infection in the first place.
Now, new analysis shows that obesity alone increases your risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19; Obesity increases the risk of infection in your area.
In a March 2020 observational study, hypertension, diabetes, and coronary artery disease were reported to be among the most common other conditions – or co-pathological – in patients with more severe Covid-19 disease.
But those were the editors Obesity The Journal, which raised the alarm on April 1, 2020, said that obesity was likely to be an independent risk factor for the more serious effects of COVID-19 infection.
In addition, two studies involving about 10,000 patients have shown that both patients with covid-19 and obesity have a higher risk of death at 21 and 45 days than patients with normal body mass index or BMI.
And a study published in September, 2020 noted higher rates of obesity in CIVID-19 patients who are critically ill and need end-to-end motivation.
Through this study and others it is becoming increasingly clear that obese people face clear and present fears.
Stigma and lack of understanding
Obesity is an interesting disease. He is the one that many physicians talk about, often in frustration that their patients cannot prevent or reverse it from the oversimplified treatment plan taught to us in your initial training; “Eat less and exercise more.”
It is a disease that causes physical problems, such as sleep apnea and joint pain. It also affects one’s brain and emotions due to the bias of social and medical professionals towards obese people.
It can also adversely affect the size of your paycheck. Can you imagine the aggression if you read the headline “Patients with high blood pressure get less”?
We doctors and researchers have long understood the long-term consequences of overweight and overweight obesity. We currently know that obesity is associated with at least 236 clinical diagnoses, including 13 types of cancer. Obesity can reduce a person’s lifespan by up to eight years.
Despite knowing this, the U.S. Physicians are not ready to prevent obesity and vice versa. In a recently published survey, only 10 percent of medical school deans and curriculum experts believe their students were “too prepared” to manage obesity.
Half of the medical schools responded that expansion in obesity education is not a priority or less. An average of 10 hours during his full medical school training were recorded as devoted to total obesity education.
And doctors sometimes do not know how and when to prescribe medications for obese patients. For example, eight FDA-approved weight loss drugs are on the market, but only 2 percent of qualified patients receive prescriptions for them from their physicians.
What goes on in the body
So, we are here with the collision of obesity epidemic and covid-19 epidemic. And one question I find patients increasingly asking: How does obesity cause more serious disease and complications than COVID-19 infection?
There are many answers; Let’s start with the structure.
Excessive tissue, which stores fat, causes mechanical contractions in obese patients. This limits their ability to breathe and release air completely.
Breathing takes more work in an obese patient. It creates restricted lung disease, and in more severe cases, leads to hypoventilation syndrome, which can cause very little oxygen in a person’s blood.
And then there’s the task. Obesity results in an increase in adipose tissue, or what we brazenly call “fat”. Over the years, scientists have learned that fatty tissues are themselves and harmful.
One can say that adipose tissue acts as its endocrine organ. It releases multiple hormones and molecules that lead to acute inflammatory conditions in obese patients.
When the body is in a constant state of low-grade inflammation, it releases cytokines, proteins that fight inflammation. They protect the body, keep it warm and ready to fight disease. All is well and good when it is examined by other systems and cells.
When they are released for a long time, however, imbalances can occur that injure the body. Think of it as a small, but contained wildfire. It’s dangerous, but it’s not burning the whole forest.
COVID-19 causes the body to create another cytokine wildfire. When an obese person has Covid-19, two small cytokine wildfires come together, leading to a massive fire of inflammation that causes more damage to the lungs than patients with normal BMI.
Moreover, this chronic condition of inflammation can lead to something called endothelial dysfunction. In this condition, the blood vessels close and constrict instead of opening, further reducing the oxygen in the tissues.
In addition, increased adipose tissue may contain more ACE-2, enzymes or coronaviruses that can invade cells and begin to damage them. A recent study found an increase in ACE-2 in adipose tissue rather than lung tissue.
This finding reinforces the hypothesis that obesity plays a major role in more severe COVID-19 infections.
So in theory, if you have more adipose tissue, the virus can bind with more cells and invade it, causing the viral load to stay around longer, which can make the infection more intense and last longer. Is.
ACE-2 may be helpful in fighting inflammation, but if it is bound to Covid-19, it may not be able to help.
The novelty of the SARS-CV-2 virus has forced the medical profession to face the reality that many physicians in the US naturally know. When it comes to preventing chronic diseases such as obesity, the U.S. health care system is not performing well.
Many insurers reward bounty hunters who meet the matrix of treatment of the effects of obesity, instead of preventing or treating the disease. Physicians are reimbursed, for example, to help patients with type 2 diabetes achieve a certain A1C level, or a fixed target for blood pressure.
I believe it is time to educate physicians and provide resources to fight obesity. Physicians can no longer deny that obesity should become the number one public enemy, a strong predictor for Covid-19 and at least 236 other medical conditions.
Kate Verne, Clinical Physician, University of Virginia.
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