How fasting can help overweight people in the current Covid-19 context.

Article by Dr. Philippe Guerin, for Fasting & Wellbeing Network

What are the links between obesity and COVID-19?

The pandemic linked to infection with the Covid-19 virus revealed very early on, the links between obesity, diabetes and the severity of the disease (1-2). A study also found that a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 29 was the only criterion predicting the severity of the infection, even when taking multiple factors into account (3). In addition, another study of infected patients found that obesity made younger aged patients more likely to have severe forms of Covid-19 (4).

Obesity and inflammation

The adipose tissue (fat) of obese people is already recognized as a source of pro-inflammatory factors, including abdominal fat, intramuscular fat (1-5), and liver fat (fatty liver disease) (6) and are greatly involved in the cascade of severe forms of complications which follow the viral infection.

Obesity and microbiota

Finally, the research carried out on a multitude of obese patients has revealed an alteration in the abundance and biodiversity of intestinal bacteria (microbiota), which appear to be closely associated with the inflammatory profile of patients. This contribute to make the adipose tissue a viral pool for obese patients.

Prevention

Fasting acts favourably on obesity, fatty liver disease, diabetes and on the microbiota. Optimal prevention against COVID-19 at any age, is of course not to catch it, but also to have a moderate weight, without "fatty liver", and without diabetes, with a healthy microbiota in order to avoid chronic inflammation and severe forms of viral infections.

Fasting can definitely help protect against the serious forms of this new disease!

Doctor Philippe Guérin supervises fasting retreats in our Fasting & Health institute where he uses a comprehensive medicalised and personalised approach for sustainable weight loss with a stress free groundwork preparation in order to implementing long-term habit-based dietary and lifestyle behaviour changes.

Sources

1. A. Simonnet et al., High Prevalence of Obesity in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-(SARS-CoV-2) Requiring Invasive Mechanical Ventilation. Obesity (Silver Spring) 28, 1195-1199 (2020).

2. C. Caussy, F. Wallet, M. Laville, E. Disse, Obesity is Associated with Severe Forms of COVID-19. Obesity (Silver Spring) 28, 1175 (2020).

3. B. Cariou et al., Phenotypic characteristics and prognosis of inpatients with COVID-19 and diabetes: the CORONADO study. Diabetologia, (2020).

4. D. A. Kass, P. Duggal, O. Cingolani, Obesity could shift severe COVID-19 disease to younger ages. Lancet 395, 1544-1545 (2020)

5. Y. Yang et al., Visceral Adiposity and High Intramuscular Fat Deposition Independently Predict Critical Illness in Patients with Sars-COV-2. Obesity (Silver Spring), (2020).

6. A. Palomar-Lever et al., Hepatic steatosis as an independent risk factor for severe disease in patients with COVID-19: A computed tomography study. JGH Open, (2020).

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