Effect of increased BMI and obesity on the outcome of COVID-19 adult patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Corona virus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic spread rapidly. Growing evidences that overweight and obesity which extent nearly a third of the world population were associated with severe COVID-19. This study aimed to explore the association and risk of increased BMI and obesity with composite poor outcome in COVID-19 adult patients. We conducted a systematic literature search from PubMed and Embase database. We included all original research articles in COVID-19 adult patients and obesity based on classification of Body Mass Index (BMI) and composite poor outcome which consist of ICU admission, ARDS, severe COVID-19, use of mechanical ventilation, hospital admission, and mortality. Sixteen studies were included in meta-analysis with 9 studies presented BMI as continuous outcome and 10 studies presented BMI as dichotomous outcome (cut-off ≥30 kg/m2). COVID-19 patients with composite poor outcome had higher BMI with mean difference 1.12 (95% CI, 0.67–1.57, P