People with obesity should be one of the first to receive the coronavirus vaccine, which is because they are one of the population groups that have the most risk factor against covid-19. A study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) indicates that obesity is an independent risk factor for the development of the severe version of covid.
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Obesity alters the body’s physiological state and this disease meets the characteristics covid requires to complicate itself as inflammation and dysfunctional increase of adipose tissue. Dysfunctional adipose tissue increases the presence of the angiotensin receptor, increasing the virus’s ability to invade cells.
Therefore, at the beginning of vaccination in various parts of the world, efforts have been made to demonstrate why people with obesity should be at the top of the list to receive the vaccine. One argument is that obesity is already in itself a disease that obstructs airway resistance and this is compounded when they are hospitalized by a complication of covid-19 until they reach the lungs. When obese patients need to be admitted into intensive care units, it is a challenge to improve their oxygen saturation levels and ventilate them. (These are the actions to prevent obesity in children)
According to the National Centers for Biotechnological Information (NCBI), obesity has been listed since the onset of the pandemic as a risk factor. Studies show that obesity is a risk factor for hospitalization, admission into an intensive care unit, and the development of serious consequences that lead to death, in case of COVID-19 disease. In France, the NCBI describes it was observed that people with an obesity rate equal to or greater than 35 more frequently require invasive mechanical ventilation, compared to thin patients, regardless of age, sex, diabetes and high blood pressure. It is explained that one of the biological mechanisms that can most affect people with obesity is chronic inflammation, caused by excess adipose tissue in people with obesity. COVID-19 can further exacerbate inflammation, exposing them to higher levels of circulating inflammatory molecules compared to thin subjects. This inflammation can lead to metabolic dysfunction that can lead, among other pathologies, to dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, which have also been considered risk factors for COVID-19. These are the reasons why people with obesity should receive the covid vaccine as a priority, this would prevent more people from being hospitalized.
