Association Between Obesity and COVID-19 Disease Severity in Saudi Population

BACKGROUND

The persistent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has placed a significant burden on the scientific and medical professions. The study examined the association between body mass index (BMI), stratified by category, and severe form of COVID-19, and to explore the influence of demographic characteristics and other known risk factors.

METHODS

This was a retrospective analysis based on COVID-19 data from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health. Data were collected for all patients admitted to three main hospitals in Riyadh region between March 1st and July 30, 2020. The effects of BMI, demographic characteristics, clinical presentation, and comorbidities on infection severity were investigated.

RESULTS

A total of 950 patients were included in the study (70% male, 85% aged younger than 60 years old). A total of 55 (5.8%) patients were underweight, 263 (27.7%) were normal weight, 351 (37%) were overweight, 161 (17%) were obese class I, 76 (8%) were obese class II, and 44 (4.6%) were obese class III. Cough, fever, and shortness of breath were the most common symptoms among overweight patients. According to the findings of a bivariate logistic regression study, class III obesity was significantly associated with a more severe form of COVID-19 (odds ratio, 2.874; 95% confidence interval, 1.344-6.149).

CONCLUSION

This study revealed that patients with a BMI ≥40 kg/m² had a higher risk of severe COVID-19 than those with normal weight. This suggests that obesity is a risk factor for severe COVID-19 and influences disease presentation.

Clinical characteristics and risk factors of patients with severe COVID-19 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: A retrospective study

Background

COVID-19 is newly emerging infectious disease that spread globally at unpredictable and unique pattern to the extent that the World Health Organization announced COVID-19 as a pandemic in the first couple months of 2020. This study aims to describe clinical and demographic features of COVID-19 patients and the influence of various risk factors on the severity of disease.

Methods

This research is a retrospective study based on Saudi Arabia's ministry of health’s Covid-19 data. The analysis relies on data of all COVID-19 patients recorded in Riyadh between 1st, March 2020 and 30th, July 2020. Statistical analyses were performed to investigate the effect of demographic characteristic, clinical presentation, and comorbidities on infection severity.

Results

A total number of 1026 COVID-19 patients were identified based on the demographic data as follows: 709 cases (69% of cases) were males and 559 cases (54% of cases) were Saudi. Most of patients were diagnosed with mild signs and symptoms 697 (68% of cases), while 164 patient (16% of cases) demonstrated moderate signs and symptoms, and 103 cases (10%) were severe and 62 (6%) had critical febrile illness. Fever, cough, sore throat, and shortness of breath were the most common symptoms among patients with COVID-19. Among studied comorbidities in COVID-19 patients, diabetes mellitus and hypertension were the most prevalent. The results from the bivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that older age, diabetes mellitus, asthma, smoking, and fever are associated with severe or critically ill cases.

Conclusion

The findings of this study show that old age, fever, and comorbidities involving diabetes mellitus, asthma, and smoking were significantly associated with infection severity.

Association between FTO, MC4R, SLC30A8, and KCNQ1 gene variants and type 2 diabetes in Saudi population

Recent genome wide association studies identified many loci in several genes that have been consistently associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus in various ethnic populations. Among the genes that were most strongly associated with diabetes were fat mass- and obesity-associated, melanocortin 4 receptor, solute carrier family 30 member 8 (SLC30A8), and a member of the potassium voltage-gated channels. In the present study, we examined the association between variants in fat mass- and obesity-associated [rs9939609 (A/T)], melanocortin 4 receptor [rs17782313 (C/T), and rs12970134 (A/G)], SLC30A8 [rs13266634 (C/T)], and a member of the potassium voltage-gated channels [rs2237892(C/T)] genes in diabetes patients from Saudi Arabia. Genotypes were determined using the TaqMan single-nucleotide polymorphism genotype analysis technique. Minor allele frequency of the 4 variants tested was comparable between type 2 diabetes cases and controls. We observed an association between allele variants of SLC30A8 [rs13266634 (C/T)] and type 2-diabetes (P = 0.04). The other single-nucleotide polymorphisms examined in this study showed moderate or no correlation with diabetes in Saudis. Our data indicate that the SLC30A8 polymorphisms are associated with type 2 diabetes in the Saudi population. There is no evidence supporting an association between variants in the fat mass- and obesity-associated and melanocortin 4 receptor, and a member of the potassium voltage-gated channels genes and type 2 diabetes in the Saudi population.

Molecular cloning and cDNA characterization of Camelus dromedarius putative cytochrome P450s 1A, 2C, and 3A

The domesticated one-humped Arabian camel, Camelus dromedarius, is one of the most important animals in the Arabian Peninsula. Most of its life, this animal is exposed to both intrinsic and extrinsic genotoxic factors that are known to cause gross metabolic alterations in many organisms. This study determined the full length coding sequence of 3 cytochrome P450s cDNAs; namely, CYP450 1A1, CYP450 2C and CYP450 3A using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The C. dromedarius CYP450s 1A1, 2C, and 3A have open reading frames of 1563, 1473, and 1566 bp and cDNAs that encode proteins of 520, 490, and 521 amino acid residues, respectively. The molecular weights calculated for CYP1A1, 2C, and 3A were found to be 58.651, 56.03, and 58.594 kDa, while the predicted calculated isoelectric points using a computer algorithm were 7.315, 6.579, and 9.46. The deduced amino acid sequences of these CYPs showed the membrane anchored signal peptide, the conserved proline-rich amino terminus and the characteristic heme-binding signature localized near the carboxy terminus of the protein.