I originally posted this in the /r/SuperMorbidlyObese sub however I've seen a lot of other obese people around reddit very worried about COVID19 and so I wanted to try and share this with a larger sub.
It's pretty well established now that there is link between morbid obesity and more severe COVID19 outcomes (COVID19 is the disease that is caused by contracting sars-cov-2/coronavirus). The US CDC lists obesity as a risk factor for severe disease outcomes: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-with-medical-conditions.html#obesity
They aren't sure on the reason why yet and they aren't such how much of an extra risk it is, it takes time to research all of this. One possible reason could be because obesity causes a low grade inflammation which can essentially put your immune system at a disadvantage. Some more info here if you are curious: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.01607/full
Whatever the reason, what you can say though is that losing weight is absolutely the best thing you can do. Even if it feels pointless because you may think "I'll catch the virus before I can get to a normal BMI", while that might happen, studies have shown that even mild weight loss can start to greatly improve your immune system:
“We have found that a modest weight loss of about 6 kg is enough to bring the pro- inflammatory nature of circulating immune cells back to that found in lean people.” https://www.garvan.org.au/news-events/news/the-remarkable-effects-of-fat-loss-on-the-immune-system
Personally when I learned the above it was a great relief! I'm still above 50BMI so it's going to take a long time for me to get my BMI down, but reading that even 'modest' weight loss can improve your immune system is great news, a very attainable goal that we can achieve in the interim. If you were on the fence about starting then get off the fence and start today, so you can be in the best position possible if/when you contract the virus.
Finally I want to mention that there is the emerging evidence that low vitamin D levels are being found in patients with more severe COVID19 disease.
This is worth mentioning because there is also a strong link between obesity and low vitamin D levels.
What can you do about this? I suggest talking to your Doctor about having your vitamin D levels checked. They might even already have data if you've had a blood test recently. I was told last year that I had low vitamin D levels but I didn't take it seriously at the time. To be honest I always felt vitamins were kind of a meme, as bad as that sounds. I'm now taking vitamin D supplements as advised by my Doctor.
Even disregarding COVID19, it's worth having your vitamin D checked if you are morbidly obese/SMO, as low vitamin D can have other negative health effects.
So those are two very simple things you can do to really help improve your health in a short time frame!
WARNING: I'm just going to add in a warning here just in case, Vitamin D is fat soluble, which means it is possible to 'overdose' on vitamin D, ie, it can be toxic if you take a huge dose. I just wanted to add this in case someone panics and tries to down a whole bottle of Vitamin D supplements to try and 'catch up' or something. You should always talk to your Doctor before taking any medications/vitamins.
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