Nutritional Advice El Mondo
Objectives:
Several comorbidities have been shown to be associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) related severity and mortality. However, considerable variation in the prevalence estimates of comorbidities and their effects on COVID-19 morbidity and mortality have been observed in prior studies. Therefore, this review article has been conducted.
What are the geographical, age and gender related differences in the prevalence of comorbidities and associated severity and mortality rates among COVID-19 patients?
Study design:
This review article included 120 studies with 125,446 COVID-19 patients.
Of the total, 72 studies reported from Asia, 26 from Europe, 16 from the USA, 5 from Latin America and 1 from South Africa.
The mean age of the patients was 56.2 years [95% CI = 52.6 to 59.8 years] with the highest in Europe (64.8 years), followed by the USA (60.4 years), Asia (54.4 years) and Latin America (50.2 years).
No evidence of publication bias or small sample size effect was observed for the estimation of prevalence of comorbidity or associated mortality except for the severity in some comorbidities.
Results and conclusions:
The investigators found the most prevalent comorbidity was hypertension (32%), obesity (25%), diabetes (18%) and cardiovascular disease (16%).
The investigators found chronic kidney or other renal diseases (51%, 44%), cerebrovascular accident (43%, 44%) and cardiovascular disease (44%, 40%) patients had more COVID-19 severity and mortality, respectively.
The investigators found the highest mortality was observed in studies with Latin American and European patients with any medical condition, mostly older adults (≥ 65 years) and predominantly male patients.
The investigators found although the US studies observed the highest prevalence of comorbidities in COVID-19 patients, the severity of COVID-19 among each comorbid condition was highest in Asian studies whereas the mortality was highest in the European and Latin American countries.
The investigators concluded hypertension, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease are more frequently observed in COVID-19 patients, whereas mortality is more frequently observed in COVID-19 patients with chronic kidney or other renal diseases, cerebrovascular accident and cardiovascular disease.
High prevalence estimates of major comorbid conditions are found in US studies. Among patients with any comorbidities, the highest disease severity are found in Asian region while the highest mortality in European and Latin American regions. The mortality among those with underlying medical diseases is high in mostly elderly and predominantly male patients with considerable mortality in older patients without any comorbidities. COVID-19 severity and mortality are highly variable based on medical conditions specific to geographic regions. These findings clearly suggest that country-specific comorbidities should ideally be used to evaluate and stratify risk for the COVID-19 disease severity and mortality.
Original title:
A systematic review and meta-analysis of geographic differences in comorbidities and associated severity and mortality among individuals with COVID-19 by Thakur B, Dubey P, […], Dwivedi AK.
Link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8058064/
Additional information of El Mondo:
Find more information/studies on hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and coronavirus right here.