Obesity, diabetes associated with increased risk for severe malaria infection.

Obesity, diabetes associated with increased risk for severe malaria infection.Diabetes and obesity were significant risk factors for severe infection among nonimmune travelers and immigrants from malaria endemic countries, according to researchers. “Obesity and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease, increase globally, including in malaria-endemic regions,” Katja Wyss, MD, of Karolinska Institutet and the departments of emergency medicine and infectious diseases at Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues wrote in Clinical Infectious Diseases. “In addition, a significant proportion of travelers are older, and an estimated third of travelers to malarious countries have underlying medication conditions. This changing disease panorama in populations at risk of malaria warrants the need to establish how comorbidities affected severity of malaria.” more