Since the onset of the COVID War, when some New York City hospitals were being filled with coronavirus patients, the Trends Journal cited medical research concluding that among the most vulnerable victims were those suffering from obesity, Type 2 diabetes, respiratory conditions, and heart disease.
In the 21 April Trends Journal, we reported:
A new study published this month in the Oxford University Press medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases shows patients younger than 60 with a BMI in the 30-34 range (“obese”) who contracted the virus were being admitted to hospitals at double the rate of non-obese peers, and, once in a hospital setting, they were nearly twice as likely to need the resources of an intensive care unit.
“Obesity is more important for hospitalization than whether you have high blood pressure or diabetes, though these often go together, and it’s more important than coronary disease or cancer or kidney disease, or even pulmonary disease,” said Dr. Leora Horwitz, director of the Center for Healthcare Innovation and Delivery Science at NYU Langone.
More confirmation that COVID-19 is primarily a health issue for the elderly and obese comes from a second study conducted by NYU doctors and researchers, which was published on 12 April. The report showed the strongest predictor of the need for hospitalization from COVID-19 was being older than 75, second strongest was being 65-75, and the third most likely factor was being ‘severely’ obese.
Then, on 10 June, the medical journal BMJ published an editorial citing the high-risk factor of those who are obese contracting COVID-19 and calling on governments to take a more active role in educating and helping to prevent the rise in obesity. One author, Professor Graham MacGregor of the Queen Mary University of London, said, “I think people have recognized now that based on every study you look at – including the early studies in China which were open studies, then from Europe, then from New York – they all show obesity increases the severity of COVID-19 and increases mortality.”
Going Down Heavy
According to the CDC, 71.6 percent of Americans adults aged 20 and over are overweight, and 42.2 are obese.
Now, an 8 September peer-reviewed study in the journal American Association for the Advancement of Science, as reported in Science magazine, shows that beyond obesity, even people who are “overweight” are also at higher risk of dying from the coronavirus.
Previously, it was thought that only those defined as “clinically obese” were at high risk. Obesity is rated according to a body mass index (BMI), which takes into account one’s height and weight. As the Mayo Clinic confirms, those with a BMI of 30 or more are considered “clinically” obese. But the updated data shows even those defined as “overweight” with a BMI of 25-30 are also at high risk.
In our 25 August Trends Journal, we reported, “A study from Columbia University revealed that clinically obese people who had contracted COVID-19 were 60 percent more likely to die.” We went on to note, citing facts from the CDC, that “obesity rates are afflicting Black and Hispanics at higher rates than Whites.”
And in the 14 April Trends Journal, after Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan locked down the entire state to fight the COVID War, we wrote, “While the Governor decided to shut down the entire state, missing in the reporting is that Detroit, a city of some 4.3 million that has seen a huge rise in poverty over the past few decades, is the scene of nearly 90 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the state. Millions of destitute residents, already in poor health and with poor eating habits, live in rundown, unsanitary housing and lack access to decent health care.”
Better Late Than Never
Repeating what we have been reporting for several months, last Tuesday, The New York Times said, “Excess weight goes hand in hand in hand with other medical conditions, like high blood pressure and diabetes, which may by themselves make it harder to fight COVID-19.”
The article pointed out that obesity has a particularly devastating health effect on poor Blacks and Latinos who have higher rates of obesity. (According to 29 June data on the CDC website, non-Hispanic blacks had the highest age-adjusted prevalence of obesity at 49.6 percent, followed by Hispanics at 44.8 percent, and non-Hispanic whites at 42.2 percent). The NYT article also points out that the large numbers of minorities living in poor neighborhoods often have less access to quality medical care.
An article published on 11 August in the medical journal medRXiv titled, “Descriptive epidemiology of 16,780 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the United States” showed an even stronger link between excess weight and those needing to be hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus: a hefty 77.2 percent of the patients admitted to hospitals with severe COVID-19 symptoms were obese or overweight.
A study published on 3 June by the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center states, “When obesity occurs, a person’s own fat cells can set off a complex inflammatory chain reaction that can further disrupt metabolism and weaken immune response – potentially placing people at higher risk of poor outcomes from a variety of diseases and infections, including COVID-19.”
Lockdowns Making the Problem Worse
Medical evidence makes it clear that excess fat suppresses the body’s natural immune system from functioning at needed strength. Dr. Barry M. Popkin, Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina, wrote in a university newsletter on 26 August about the devastating effects of governors closing down economies and issuing stay-at-home restrictions:
“The pandemic’s resulting lockdown has led to a number of conditions that make it harder for individuals to achieve or sustain a healthy weight. Working from home, limiting social visits, and reducing everyday activities – all in an effort to stop the spread of the virus – means we’re moving less than ever. The ability to access healthy foods also has taken a hit. Economic hardships put those who are already food-insecure at further risk, making them more vulnerable to conditions that can arise from consuming unhealthy foods.”
TREND FORECAST: Once again, the mainstream media is not only late in reporting the hard virus facts of who is dying, at what age, and why… instead, they sell fear and hysteria while essentially downplaying the scientific results when they do report them.
As Gerald Celente has been saying loudly and clearly for months, and what is absent from the “wait for the vaccine” mainstream media, is that a strong defense against any virus is a strong immune system.
We forecast a strong growth market for whole health healing opportunities for OnTrendpreneurs® to capitalize on as sizable segments of populations move toward embracing a “New Age 2.0” body, mind, and spirit movement.