Study: Obesity Increases Risk of H1N1 Complications
According to the NYT, hospitalization rates are increased for obese/morbidly obese people with swine flu infections.
Obesity appears to be a risk factor on a par with pregnancy for developing complications from an infection with pandemic H1N1 influenza, according to the most comprehensive look yet at swine flu hospitalizations.
About a quarter of those hospitalizations have been for people who were morbidly obese, even though such people make up less than 5% of the population. That fivefold increase in risk is close to the sixfold increase observed in pregnant women…When the merely obese are included with the morbidly obese, they make up 34% of the American population. Yet they accounted for 58% of the hospitalizations in the study.
…The researchers found that two-thirds of the obese patients had a health problem that was previously recognized as an underlying risk factor for swine flu. The most common were chronic lung disease, heart disease and diabetes.
But that still left one-third of obese patients without other risk factors, said Dr. Janice K. Louie, lead author of the study and chief of the state health department’s influenza and respiratory syndromes section.
There are many possible explanations.
This parallels a University of Michigan report released a few months ago.
