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. 2023 Apr 11;13(1):5895.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33093-3.

Obesity and COVID-19 mortality are correlated

Bernard Arulanandam  1 , Hamid Beladi  2 , Avik Chakrabarti  3   4
Affiliations

Obesity and COVID-19 mortality are correlated

Bernard Arulanandam et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

In view of a conspicuous absence of any cross-country study linking obesity and COVID-19 mortality, we conduct an empirical analysis of plausible associations between COVID-19 mortality and the proportion of obese in the adult population distributed across 142 countries around the globe. We observe a statistically significant positive association between COVID-19 mortality and the proportion of obese in adult populations spanning 142 countries. This association holds across countries belonging to different income groups and is not sensitive to a population's median age, proportion of the elderly, and/or proportion of females. The estimated elasticity of COVID-19 mortality, with respect to the proportion of obese in adult populations, is the highest for the sub-sample of countries that belong to the high-income group. While limits of confidence intervals around the point estimates of these elasticities range between 0.7 and 2.1, on an average, every percentage point increment in the proportion of obese in adult populations contributes to an additional 1.5% points to COVID-19 mortality for high income countries. A positive association, observed between COVID-19 mortality and the proportion of the obese in a country's adult population, is robust subject to alterations in the conditioning information set on age, gender, and income.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Global Distribution of COVID-19 Deaths Per Million People. Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Global Distribution of Obese in Adult Population. Source: Global Health Observatory, World Health Organization.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Volume and Duration of Viral Shedding: Obese vs. Lean. Source: Honce and Stacey.
Figure 4
Figure 4
COVID-19 Mortality, Age, and Obesity.
Figure 5
Figure 5
COVID-19 Mortality and Proportion of Obese in Adult Populations (142 countries hosting more than 7.5 billion people). Each circle, with radius proportional to population size, represents a country.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Proportion of Obese vs. Overweight in Adult Populations across Countries.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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