Researchers in the U.S., including Dr. Lena Napolitano of the University of Michigan Medical Center, studied 10 patients admitted to the university’s intensive care unit with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by infection with H1N1.
“Of the 10 patients, nine were obese (body mass index more than 30), including seven who were extremely obese (BMI more than 40),” the experts wrote in the report published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report on death and disease.
The study wasn’t actually put fourth to examine swine flu and its relationship to obesity. But to the surprise of the researchers, seven of the 10 patients were extremely obese.
Nine of the patients had multiple organ failure, five had blood clots in the lungs, and three have died. None of them have fully recovered from their illness.
The H1N1 swine flu virus first emerged in Mexico last March and is responsible for more than 700 deaths across the globe, according to the World Health Organization. There have been 263 swine flu deaths here in the U.S., according to a report by the Associated Press.
July 27th, 2009