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Obesity Puts Swine Flu Sufferers at Greater Risk, Study Suggests

from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

Obesity appears to be a risk factor on a par with pregnancy for developing complications from an infection with pandemic H1N1 influenza, according to the most comprehensive look yet at swine flu hospitalizations.

About a quarter of those hospitalizations have been for people who were morbidly obese, even though such people make up less than 5% of the population. That fivefold increase in risk is close to the sixfold increase observed in pregnant women, according to the report published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

When the merely obese are included with the morbidly obese, they make up 34% of the American population. Yet they accounted for 58% of the hospitalizations in the study.