Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionately

Philip K Dickhead writes "Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that's emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development. 'It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks.' Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."

Comments

Re:A reasoned discussion

[syousef]

It takes months or years to become morbidly obese in the first place. Cry me a fricken river. The longer you wait to take action, the longer it'll take.

Well I got obese around the age of 3 asshole. You going to hold a child accountable for that? Even holding the parents accountable has its problems. Not all our bodies work the same way dipshit.

And that's a valid reason. However, since that's a fraction of a percent of obese people, it's really not worth considering.

Of course you know everyone's complete medical history and have statistics to back up your abhorrent decision that this "fraction of a percent" of people isn't "worth considering". Your choice to ignore those who most need help is repugnant and a general indicator of your lack of compassion. Fuck you.

How about walking 10 minutes every couple of hours, then? There are low-impact ways to exercise. Find them out.

Yeah that'll work. You wanna be the one to explain to my boss what the fuck I'm doing. Asshole.

Maybe because for the vast majority of obese people, it in fact is their own fault?!

So what you're saying is that a huge percentage of the population are just weak willed. Doesn't the fact that it's such a wide spread thing that goes across all demographics when it comes to socio-economic status and education tell you any fucking thing? Are you really that obtuse?

It takes years to go from a bit chubby to morbidly obese. That's years of ignoring the problem, years of refusing to take action. It doesn't just suddenly happen.

I don't have compassion for people who whine about how tired they are after staying up watching movies and drinking all night. Their choice, their consequence.

Well it's clear that you have no compassion period. Why don't you post with your actual name instead of being such a coward to boot? Trying to explain anything as complex as how to change a tyre on you is clearly wasted, let alone how and why people "allow" themselves to put on weight.

its new

[circletimessquare]

that makes it important

neither you, nor i, nor the cdc, nor the who, really knows what will happen in the fall, or how many it will kill. could be a couple hundred, could be couple hundred thousand. if you find someone who can tell me for certain how many will be killed, i'll show you a liar. that kind of unknown makes it newsworthy and genuinely important

the flu always explodes in the late fall, and this is a new bug. its a significant unknown, and that matters

its not hype, its a genuine concern