ArticleMetabolism: clinical and experimental2021
Impact of body composition on COVID-19 susceptibility and severity: A two-sample multivariable Mendelian randomization study.
Article in Metabolism: clinical and experimental, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 129 citations in OpenAlex.
- The association of overweight, obesity, and long-term obesity with SARS-CoV-2 infection: a meta-analysis of 9 population-based cohorts from the Netherlands Cohorts Consortium.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Pooled it
- Biomarkers Associated With Severe COVID-19 Among Populations With High Cardiometabolic Risk: A 2-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.JAMA network open · 2023Pooled it
- Identifying factors contributing to increased susceptibility to COVID-19 risk: a systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Mendelian Randomization Analysis Reveals No Causal Relationship Between Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Severe COVID-19.Clinical gastroenterology and hepatology : the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association · 2022Pooled it
- Common genetic mechanisms between obesity and COVID-19 severity: unravelling pleiotropic loci and biological pathways.Royal Society open science · 2026Article
- Assessing the causal effects of type 2 diabetes and obesity-related traits on COVID-19 severity.Human genomics · 2025Article
- Article
- Association Between Educational Attainment and Chronic Pain: A Mediation Mendelian Randomization Study.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- Adiposity and mortality among intensive care patients with COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 respiratory conditions: a cross-context comparison study in the UK.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Obesity Parameters as Predictor of Poor Outcomes in Hospitalized Patients with Confirmed Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19.Infectious disease reports · 2024Article
- Insights from immunomics and metabolomics on the associations between prostatic diseases and coronavirus disease 2019.Prostate international · 2024Article
- Associations of Temporal Cardiometabolic Patterns and Incident SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among U.S. Blood Donors With Serologic Evidence of Vaccination.AJPM focus · 2024Article
- Visceral fat area measured by electrical bioimpedance as an aggravating factor of COVID-19: a study on body composition.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- The Intersection Between COVID-19, Cardiovascular Disease, and Diet: a Review.Current atherosclerosis reports · 2023Review
- The causal relationship between COVID-19 and seventeen common digestive diseases: a two-sample, multivariable Mendelian randomization study.Human genomics · 2023Article
- Genetic predisposition to subjective well-being, depression, and suicide in relation to COVID-19 susceptibility and severity.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Article
- A framework for assessing selection and misclassification bias in mendelian randomisation studies: an illustrative example between body mass index and covid-19.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Article
- Causal associations between chronic hepatitis B and COVID-19 in East Asian populations.Virology journal · 2023Article
- Predicting the mortality of patients with Covid-19: A machine learning approach.Health science reports · 2023Article
- The impact of obesity: a narrative review.Singapore medical journal · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesRecent studies suggested obesity to be a possible risk factor for COVID-19 disease in the wake of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection. However, the causality and especially the role of body fat distribution in this context is still unclear. Thus, using a univariable as well as multivariable two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach, we investigated for the first time the causal impact of body composition on the susceptibility and severity of COVID-19.
methodsAs indicators of overall and abdominal obesity we considered the measures body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and trunk fat ratio (TFR). Summary statistics of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) for these body composition measures were drawn from the GIANT consortium and UK Biobank, while for susceptibility and severity due to COVID-19 disease data from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative was used. For the COVID-19 cohort neither age nor gender was available. Total and direct causal effect estimates were calculated using Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), sensitivity analyses were done applying several robust MR techniques and mediation effects of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) were investigated within multivariable MR analyses.
resultsGenetically predicted BMI was strongly associated with both, susceptibility (OR = 1.31 per 1 SD increase; 95% CI: 1.15-1.50; P-value = 7.3·10
conclusionsThis study provides strong evidence for a causal impact of overall obesity on the susceptibility and severity of COVID-19 disease. The impact of abdominal obesity was weaker and disappeared after adjustment for BMI. Therefore, obese people should be regarded as a high-risk group. Future research is necessary to investigate the underlying mechanisms linking obesity with COVID-19.
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