The 2 biggest risk factors for COVID-19 are in your control

As I write this, we're approaching the end of August 2020, and the world is still reeling from the COVID-19 global pandemic.

We're approaching 1 million deaths worldwide, with the US leading the way with almost a quarter of those deaths.

Researchers have been working relentlessly to find out who is most at risk, and we are now finally getting consistent answers:

The 2 biggest risk factors for complications arising from COVID-19 are:
- Bodyweight (bodyfat)
- Blood glucose level (blood sugar).

I will put links below to some of that research, but what you should know is this:

On bodyweight:

- Being "overweight but NOT obese" increases your risk of developing serious complications from COVID-19 by 40%.
- Being "overweight" means that you have a BMI between 25 and 30.
- Being "obese" (BMI 30-35) increases your risk of developing serious complications by 70%.
- Being "severely obese" (BMI above 35) increases your chances by more than 100%.

- To calculate your BMI, you can use this website.

One thing to remember: BMI is based on your weight and height. Since muscle weighs more than fat, athletes with a lot of muscles (e.g. bodybuilders, powerlifters, etc) will have a high BMI but low bodyfat. Obviously they should not use this methodology, but it still works for 90% of people.

By contrast, a lot of "thin" people have little muscle, but high bodyfat. For such people, a body composition test and a blood sugar test (see below) would be beneficial.

On blood sugar:

Studies have shown that people with elevated blood glucose are at much higher risk of developing severe complications from COVID-19.

People with high blood sugar are at higher risk of "cytokine storms": when your immune system goes crazy, attacking everything in your body.

This often leads to kidney failure, ARDS, stroke and other leading causes of death linked to COVID-19.

The reason this happens is because elevated blood sugar creates "chronic low grade inflammation": people with high blood sugar live in a constant state of inflammation, every hour of every day.

So when a serious infection hits (e.g. virus), an already overactive immune system (because of the inflammation) goes into a hyperdrive and gets out of control.

I won't go into the details of blood sugar management here (see below), but you should know the following:
- A "normal" fasting blood glucose level: below 100mg/dl.
- A "high" (pre-diabetic) fasting blood glucose level: 100-120mg/dl.
- A "very high" (diabetic) level: above 120mg/dl.

I recently wrote an article about blood sugar management, you can read it here.

But what about age? Isn't that a risk factor? Based on the data we have: no, age itself isn't a risk factor. But older people tend to have worse blood sugar, various chronic inflammations, and a tendency to be overweight.

There are of course other risk factors which can increase complications from COVID-19, but based on the data we have so far, these 2 are the most common.

Link to research on bodyweight.
Link to research on blood sugar.