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There are some doctors on here trying to educate me about what the evidence shows. Not sure twitter is the best place for that, but I'm game. I am going to assume you know the difference between a cross-sectional study and a prospective one, but for the sake of everyone else...
A cross sectional study looks at data and tries to draw conclusions. The problem is they are misleading because they don't put the data into context. This study shows that a higher % of fat people have died of COVID. But that's ALL it shows. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7346803/
A prospective study follows a group of patients over time and compares them. In this case, they followed a group of COVID patients on ICU and compared ob*se patients to those with a normal BMI. They found no difference in outcomes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7829495/#__ffn_sectitle
Decent studies ADJUST their results for underlying factors that skew the data. For example, if one group of patients has a number of underlying diseases but another group is healthy, your results will be skewed unless you account (adjust) for that.
A cross sectional study can ONLY demonstrate a link between two things. A prospective study is a slightly more accurate way of showing an association. But it still does not show whether one thing CAUSES another. In order to do that, you need an interventional study.
An interventional study randomly assigns patients to 2 separate groups. Because its random, it's much less biased. If you're studying a drug, one group gets the real thing and one group gets the placebo. If you're studying a deadly virus, placebo becomes an issue!
Oddly enough there are mo interventional studies available. The prospective studies take time (especially the larger ones) so they are still emerging. The cross sectional ones came out first. They were pulled together hastily. They used old data and didn't adjust for anything.
Every paper that has been published linking ob*sity to poor COVID outcomes recognises that their data is flawed and inconclusive. The more robust studies that are coming out now, after the masses have been convinced that one causes the other and, are automatically dismissed
The medical profession has formed an opinion based on early biased data, and it will take months (probably years) to get them to change their mind. We call this CONFINMATION BIAS. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am campaigning against weight stigma.
