Obesity Infection Risk: According to Indian government data, 23 percent of adult men and 24 percent of adult women are obese. Broadly speaking, 25 percent of adults in India are obese. Although obesity may not cause any immediate harm, it shortens life. Due to obesity, problems like liver, kidney, stomach, fatty disease etc start occurring. Not only this, the risk of cancer also increases due to obesity. Now a new research has revealed that people who are obese have a higher risk of infection diseases. According to a new study published in the Lancet journal, almost 1 in every 10 deaths due to infection worldwide in 2023 was related to obesity.

The risk of hospitalization is also higher
After analyzing data from more than 5 lakh 40 thousand adults in Finland and Britain, it was found that people suffering from obesity had a 70 percent higher risk of hospitalization or death due to infection compared to people of normal weight. The risk of infection was found to be up to three times higher in people who had severe obesity. Obesity is a medical condition in which excessive fat accumulates in the body. It is usually measured by body mass index (BMI). If a person’s BMI is 30 kilograms per square meter or more, then he is classified as obese. This study published in Lancet tried to fill an important gap. The research suggested that obese people had a higher risk of hospitalization or death due to SARS-CoV-2 infection during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was not clear whether such a risk also exists in other infectious diseases.

6 lakh deaths linked to obesity
To find the answer to this question, researchers analyzed the health data of about 4.5 lakh people. During the study, participants’ BMI was recorded at the beginning and they were followed for an average of 13 to 14 years. During this period, researchers monitored cases of hospitalization and death due to infectious diseases. Research has found that obesity increases the risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from most infections. These include flu, Covid-19, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, urinary tract infection and respiratory infections. As body weight increases, the risk of infection also increases. Researchers also used data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study to understand global estimates. They found that out of 5.4 million deaths from infectious diseases worldwide in the year 2023, about 6 lakh deaths (about 10.8 percent or one in every ten) could be linked to obesity.

One should be careful with this research
Dr. Solya Nyberg of the University of Helsinki, Finland, said, our findings show that people with obesity have a significantly higher risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from many types of infectious diseases. If obesity rates continue to rise globally, the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to related infections will also increase. The impact of this study was different in different countries. One in every four infection-related deaths in America was found to be linked to obesity. In Britain this ratio was approximately one in six. Whereas in Vietnam this share was very less, about 1 percent. The researchers also said that these findings should be interpreted with caution, as the analysis is based on observational data. This means that a direct relation between cause and effect cannot be proved.