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. 2023 Jan;31(1):43-48.
doi: 10.1002/oby.23611. Epub 2022 Nov 16.

Association of BMI with general health, working capacity recovered, and post-acute sequelae of COVID-19

Raphael S Peter  1 , Alexandra Nieters  2 , Stefan O Brockmann  3 , Siri Göpel  4 , Gerhard Kindle  2 , Uta Merle  5 , Jürgen M Steinacker  6 , Winfried V Kern  7 , Dietrich Rothenbacher  1 ; EPILOC Phase 1 Study Group
Affiliations

Association of BMI with general health, working capacity recovered, and post-acute sequelae of COVID-19

Raphael S Peter et al. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2023 Jan.

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the risk of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 associated with the continuous spectrum of BMI.

Methods: Epidemiology of Long COVID (EPILOC) is a population-based study conducted in Baden-Württemberg (Germany), including subjects aged 18 to 65 years who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 between October 2020 and April 2021. Eligible subjects answered a standardized questionnaire, including sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle factors, and the presence of specific symptoms. Participants assessed their current general health recovery and working capacity compared with the pre-infection situation and provided their body height and weight. Generalized additive models were used to assess the association of BMI with general health recovered, working capacity recovered, and prevalence of fatigue, cognitive impairment, and chest symptoms.

Results: The analyses included 11,296 individuals (41% male), with a mean age of 44.0 (SD 13.7) years. Best general health recovery was observed at BMI of 22.1 (95% CI: 21.0-27.0) kg/m2 in men and BMI of 21.6 (95% CI: 20.3-23.1) kg/m2 in women. In addition, we found that increasing BMI was consistently associated with post-COVID fatigue, neurocognitive impairment, and chest symptoms.

Conclusions: High BMI contributes to impaired recovery after SARS-CoV-2 infection; however, a low BMI is associated with impaired recovery as well.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Percent general health and working capacity recovered by body mass index (BMI) in men (top panel, blue colors) and women (bottom panel, red colors), along with the BMI distribution in men and women. The dots with whiskers represent the BMI associated with maximum general health (working capacity) recovered with its corresponding 95% CI. The associations are adjusted for age, education, smoking status, and treatment of acute SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. Shaded areas indicate parts of the BMI distribution where general health recovery was statistically significantly impaired either because of lower or higher than optimal BMI values
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Prevalence of different symptom clusters (not present before infection) by body mass index (BMI) in men (left panels, blue colors) and women (right panels, red colors), by grade of impairment. The associations are adjusted for age, education, smoking status, and treatment of acute SARS‐CoV‐2 infection
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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