Oklahoma Doctor Explains New Study On Obesity, COVID Complications

Oklahoma health experts said scientists may have made a breakthrough while researching obesity and COVID-19 complications. 

This new information comes from a study out of Stanford University, that the Healthier Oklahoma Coalition on Tuesday described as a "breakthrough." Dr. Stan Schwartz with WellOK said overweight people have higher chances for severe infection, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. 

Now, researchers at Stanford, and their colleagues in Germany and Switzerland, may have discovered why being overweight puts people at higher risk. 

Schwartz said researchers took fatty tissue from people who had died from COVID, and also took fatty samples from living people, during surgery, from people who did not have COVID. He said scientists tried to infect those fat cells in the laboratory with the COVID virus.  

“It turns out that the COVID virus actually infects certain cells that are in fatty tissue. This is a big finding if it turns out to be true,” Dr. Schwartz said.  

Schwartz cautioned this research is still in the early stages and has not been validated yet.