Call: The Importance of Losing Weight during the Coronavirus Pandemic
Posted: Apr 19 in coronavirus, Medical Weight Loss News by Dr. Lazarus
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, it has become increasingly clear that some people are at higher risk of getting severely ill than others.
Unfortunately, Colorado (and in particular Denver, Arapahoe County, Eagle County, Jefferson County) does have a high number of coronavirus cases. This article discusses why for people living in all of these areas, medical weight loss continues to be an important tool to decrease the risk of a bad outcome if one were to become infected with coronavirus.
Many people think that if they are young, they are safe; however, new data out of New York suggests that this is not true and highlights the importance of remaining vigilant with our weight loss efforts even as this pandemic continues.
Currently 40% of Americans are living with obesity. The new data out of New York show that among those people under the age of 60 infected with the coronavirus, they were twice as likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit if they also had obesity. In fact with the exception of older age, obesity has the strongest association with need for hospitalization for COVID-19, with a more than 6-fold increase in risk.
Another study showed that not only is obesity a risk factor, but the higher the BMI, the higher the risk.
This raises 2 interesting points:
- People with obesity need to be extra vigilant to be sure they do NOT get exposed to the coronavirus, and practice physical distancing until this threat has become more manageable.
- People with obesity should try to lower the body mass index as a lower BMI is associated with lower risk. The only way to do this is by losing weight (unless we have an unexpected growth spurt…) For now, it is this author’s opinion that medical weight loss is the best choice for most people living with obesity.
If you are living with obesity and want help getting to a healthier BMI to lower your risk should you have a COVID exposure, please call the office at (303) 750-9454 and we can work with you on a plan to lower your weight, and subsequently, your COVID risk.