Virus fat cells

It seems that those folks that are overweight or classified as obese will have, additionally, those medical troubles you're talking about earlier: diabetes, high blood pressure, primary problems with their lungs and other organs. Host Amber Smith: So does this research, and I understand it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, but does this research, is it leading to a consensus for why patients with excess pounds are more vulnerable? Timothy Shope, MD: I think we're all understanding that obesity is a risk factor for a lot of medical problems, including new ones or ones that we haven't yet experienced, unfortunately, and I think that controlling that obesity prior to experiencing some of these other troubles is really the key to this.

I'm talking with Dr. Timothy Shope. He's the chief of bariatric surgery at Upstate, and we're talking about research showing that the coronavirus infects fat cells and certain immune cells in the body fat. I wanted to ask you to tell us about research that compares people who had bariatric surgery with those who qualified for it but did not have the surgery.

There were some actually recently published studies, just within the past few months, from New York City and also from the Cleveland Clinic. Patients that had bariatric surgery compared to a group of patients that were eligible for bariatric surgery but did not have the procedure were less likely to be admitted to the hospital, less likely to require ICU intensive care unit care. They had shorter ICU care length of stay. If they were in the ICU, they all had shorter overall lengths of stay. The Cleveland Clinic study also found that they were less likely to need dialysis, and both studies show that they were less likely to have a death occur as a result of being infected with the virus.

Host Amber Smith: So what about bariatric surgery seems to be protective, or what do you think it is? Timothy Shope, MD: Well, I think it's probably both the loss of weight and the control of the comorbid conditions. Again, we know that even non-obese patients with advanced diabetes, non-obese patients with underlying medical troubles, were more likely to die from this virus. So clearly, the control of those medical troubles is part of it, but also I think that this newer research showing that the virus can maybe have a safe harbor in excess adipose tissue.

Losing that extra tissue probably helped as well. Host Amber Smith: What about vaccines? Do you think that the vaccines are as protective in people who are obese or overweight as in people who are at normal weight? Timothy Shope, MD: Well, we've got no reason to believe that they're not; they appear to be protective, and it doesn't appear that obesity is a reason to not become vaccinated. There is some question out there about the dosages, but there's still no data to support that.

I think that the dosage data may be more important regarding medications to treat the disease, not to prevent disease. Oct 28, Nov 09, Recommended for you. Research shows that human immune system uses ancient family of cell death proteins also found in bacteria 16 hours ago. Load comments 0. Let us know if there is a problem with our content.

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