more than 80% of people in intensive care are overweight

According to a recent article in the newspaper The world, taken back by The League against obesity, 83% of intensive care patients would be overweight or obese. But the data are not yet really searchable and it is not yet clear if theobesity or being overweight alone (as it is often accompanied by other risk factors) constitutes a true predisposition at severe forms of the disease.

A majority of overweight patients in intensive care

In several university hospitals in France, doctors note the strong presence of patients suffering overweight or obese. No statistics are currently available on this subject but it seems intuitively logical since being overweight also favors certain comorbidities. With 15% of its population suffering from obesity, the risk faced by these people is questionable. In the United States, where theepidemic is currently wreaking havoc, one in two adults is obese. Data from the United States could help confirm or reverse this trend.

For the moment, the only robust European data actually published in the scientific literature at our disposal are those of the Italian resuscitation services in Lombardy where there is no information on the weight of those admitted.

How to explain it?

Excluding comorbidity identified for Covid-19, we have known for a long time that obesity is a risk factor forpulmonary embolism. Other biological mechanisms, such as inflammatory terrain or the presence of fat in the lungs, could explain that overweight patients are more at risk than those whose weight is "healthy". But to date, it would be fortuitous to embark on the explanation of a phenomenon which we do not even know if it exists. More robust data are needed to know if overweight patients are really well represented among all the cases admitted to intensive care.

And since we're talking about weight,Handles just update its benchmarks concerning the activity physical and sedentary lifestyle by adapting them to this period of confinement. In particular, she recommends maintaining sufficient daily physical activity, even in a small space (moving around in your health home, in your garden, carrying a load, getting on or off the stairs, do household chores) and multiply the breaks between moments in front of the screens to move and avoid snacking. She recalls that physical inactivity and obesity are major risk factors for chronic disease. At an advanced age, this can also cause an irreversible decrease in the musculoskeletal system.