Metabolic syndrome And Severity of Covid-19

Covid-19 is a novel infectious disease of pandemic proportions, which started in Wuhan in 2019. Previous studies, mostly originating from China, showed that the outcome and mortality was more severe in covid-19 patients with co-morbidities, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and hypertension.

In clinical observational studies, 80% of the PCR-proven covid-19 patients in the Intensive Care Unit are overweight or morbidly obese, however the ratio of waist-hip circumference is not investigated yet. This could possibly be an important predictor for the severity of the covid-19 clinical course. Thereby, it is not known if the obese patients with covid-19 comply with the criteria of the metabolic syndrome.

Identifying risk factors for a more severe clinical course is necessary for optimizing treatment. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome is high worldwide, but it’s relationship with the severity of a covid-19 infection is still unknown.

The aim of the study is to explore the relation between metabolic syndrome and the severity of covid-19 in the first 30 days of diagnosis.

Day 1 (ER visit); day 30

Any patient with a suspicion of covid-19 infection at the ER, the criteria of the metabolic syndrome were screened; glucose, hypertension (>130/85 mmHg and/ or medication), low HDL-cholesterol (men ≤1,04 mmmol/l; women ≤ 1,29 mmol/l), high triglycerides (men and women ≥ 1,7 mmol/l or statin use), abdominal obesity (hip and waist measurement in cm).