The notoriety of obesity in the medical field has been highly documented and countless facts have been compiled showing how this condition can cause or aggravate a number of underlying health conditions, or even shorten the individual's life span. Paradoxically, there are now research studies that seem to be advocating the claim that carrying extra weight can give patients an edge when it comes to surviving sepsis.
The results of a recently conducted study that was published in the Critical Care Medicine journal stated that there was a lower mortality rate among obese patients affected with the potentially life threatening condition. Lead author for the study, Dr. Hallie C. Prescott, released a statement saying that, "Physicians expect obese patients to do poorly, and this belief can affect the care and counseling they provide to patients and their families. Our study indicates that obese sepsis patients actually have lower mortality and similar functional outcomes as normal weight patients."
Sepsis is a condition primarily characterized by septicemia or blood poisoning. When the patient gets infected with this potentially life-threatening condition, the immune system becomes overly stimulated by the infection and this could result to septic shock. Most patients affected with sepsis must be treated in the intensive care unit.
The evidence that was gathered by this research team linking the increased chance of survival to obesity has garnered much criticism. However, Dr. Prescott and her colleagues have given ample information that may prove that there is a significantly reduced risk for obese patients to die in the period after sepsis. For the research, Dr. Prescott and her team studied a group composed of sepsis patients, 42.5% of whom were of normal weight, 23.8% of were categorized as obese to severely obese, and 33.7% were slightly overweight. Based on the results seen with this control group, researchers found that the patients who had higher BMI, or body mass index, were less likely to die after sepsis treatment. They were able to cope just as well as normal weight patients, which led researchers to believe that the excess body mass may be causing the body to respond differently to serious diseases such as this. Further research will have to be conducted to fully understand this incident.