Obesity: a risk factor that increases the severity of COVID-19

Pollera P.; Sintes R.A. · Revista Cubana de Salud Publica (2022)

Resumen

Introduction: The COVID-19 disease originated in China at the end of 2019 was declared a pandemic in early March 2020 by the World Health Organization, and it is caused by SARS-CoV-2. It is characterized by its high contagion capacity, having a large number of asymptomatic people at the time of diagnosis and, above all, by being associated with risk factors that can lead to a poor prognosis of the disease like obesity. Objective: Determine the mechanisms of association of obesity with clinical severity in patients with COVID-19. Methods: An integrative review of researches published between January 1 and June 15, 2020 was conducted. For this, the search engines Google Scholar and PubMed were used. 581 studies were retrieved and 5 were selected for analysis. Conclusion: Obesity is a risk factor that increases clinical severity in patients with COVID-19, a situation that reveals its worrying increase worldwide, therefore, effective strategies must be established to reverse the prevalence of this condition, because this vulnerable population would be permanently and dangerously exposed to other pandemics that might occur.