The results of two studies indicate that patients who are overweight or obese have better mortality outcomes than patients who are at a normal weight when it comes to fighting off infectious diseases.
Approximately 1.7 million episodes of pneumonia were analyzed. The results indicated that obese patients were 29% more likely to survive than normal-weight patients (without ventilator use), and overweight patients were 23% more likely to survive.
In patients with severe pneumonia (with ventilator use), obese patients were 30% more likely to survive and overweight patients were 21% more likely to survive. Of note: across all subgroups, those patients with a lower comorbidity burden/severity were more likely to survive.
