Three new studies describe the link between obesity and elevated risk of COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes. The first study, published yesterday in Diabetes Care, shows that predominantly black hospitalized COVID-19 patients with metabolic syndrome (a combination of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and/or abnormal cholesterol levels that increases the risk of cardiovascular disease) were nearly five times more likely than their peers to require intensive care and a ventilator or experience respiratory distress and 3.4 times more likely to die from their infections. … The second study, a systematic review and meta-analysis of 75 Chinese- and English-language studies on obesity and COVID-19 published today in Obesity Reviews, found that obese people were at 1.5 times higher risk of coronavirus infection than their non-obese peers, 2.1 times more likely to be hospitalized for their infections, 1.7 times more likely to be admitted to an ICU, and 1.5 times more likely to die of the virus.