Untersuchungen ergaben, dass Fettleibigkeit das Risiko infektionsbedingter schwerer Folgen um 70 % erhöht. Bei den meisten der 925 Krankheiten, darunter Grippe, COVID-19, Lungenentzündung, Gastroenteritis und Harnwegsinfektionen, war die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass übergewichtige Menschen ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert wurden oder starben, höher als bei Menschen mit einem gesunden BMI

More than one in 10 infection-related adult deaths worldwide may be attributed to obesity, a team led by University of Helsinki researchers in Finland write in The Lancet.

The analysis of 67,766 adults in one of two cohort Finnish cohort studies, which was repeated with 479,498 adults from the UK Biobank, used national hospitalization and death registries in 2018, 2021, and 2023 to estimate that obesity confers a 70% higher risk of infection-related hospitalization or death. 

The average age in the Finnish cohorts was 42.1 years, and 73.1% were women, while the average age and proportion of women were 57 years and 54.4%, respectively, in the UK Biobank group. Obesity was characterized by body mass index (BMI) as class 1 (30.0 to to 34.9 kilograms per square meter [kg/m2]), class 2 (35.0 to 39.9 kg/m2), or class 3 (40.0 kg/m2 or higher).

“Adult obesity has been linked to specific infections, but evidence across the full spectrum of infectious diseases remains scarce,” the authors noted. “In this multicohort study with impact modelling, we examined the association between this preventable risk factor and the incidence, hospitalisations, and mortality of 925 bacterial, viral, parasitic, and fungal infectious diseases, and estimated their global and regional attributable impact.”

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)02474-2/fulltext