People with cardiometabolic risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes have an increased risk of life-threatening COVID-19 requiring treatment with invasive ventilation in the intensive care unit. The risk factors are more important in younger people, but there are also clear links between severe COVID-19 and other diseases such as asthma and chronic inflammatory diseases.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have been able to show these connections by combining data from the Swedish Intensive Care Registry with other national registries. The results are published in the journal BMJ Open.
The study includes about 12,000 people of which 1,086 Swedish patients who were being on a ventilator for COVID-19. The researchers have combined data from the Swedish Intensive Care Registry with Statistics Sweden’s population register to match control persons for age, gender and place of residence. Subsequently, the National Board of Health and Welfare’s National Patient Register and the Prescribed Drug Register have been used to obtain past medical history and drug treatments.
Risk factors more important at a younger age
“The study confirms previous findings that there is a strong link between metabolic risk factors and severe, intensive care-demanding COVID-19. New findings are that we see that the relative importance of these factors is significantly greater at younger ages and that the connection is independent of socio-economic factors,” says the study’s lead author Per Svensson, associate professor at the Department of Clinical Science and Education, Södersjukhuset and chief physician at Södersjukhuset.
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