The hospital has discovered that a significant proportion of Intensive Care patients are overweight
The intensive care unit at the UMCG in Groningen has received a grant of more than 450,000 euros to find out why COVID-19 patients in the ICU are more often overweight than patients that do not come to the ICU. As reported by the GIC.
In addition, the funding will be used to investigate whether the serious (lung) inflammation that COVID-19 patients can develop can be treated with the drug Resveratrol.
The research is being led by Peter van der Voort, head of intensive care at the UMCG, and a number of doctors and researchers at the hospital are working together with colleagues from Amphia hospital and Amsterdam UMC.
Recent research shows that 77 percent of the COVID-19 patients treated in a Dutch Intensive Care Unit (ICU) were overweight. Overweight people are 44 percent more likely to die from COVID-19, up to nearly 80 percent for ‘severely obese’ people. It is thought, therefore, that adipose tissue, especially abdominal fat, is the cause of the severe COVID-19 reaction in these patients.
Belly fat produces substances that increase the inflammatory response, including in the lungs. The question is whether this is more the case with COVID-19 than with other patients and what a possible treatment could be. The drug Resveratrol is being researched for this use. Blood samples and adipose tissue from COVID patients and other patients are being compared and examined in the laboratory.
The research is to be carried out in 3 phases and will be completed within 24 months. The researchers hope to be able to present research results in the meantime.
Image via the UMCG
