Is Increased BMI a Risk Factor for Developing Severe Clostridioides Difficile Infection? A Retrospective Study.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Chatterjee, Tulika Bansal, Saurabh Abuzar, Asif Hussain, Habiba Gupta, Latika
Copyright Year	2022
Abstract	BackgroundObesity is associated with a relative increase in bacterial phyla like firmicutes, which helps in the colonization of Clostridioides Difficile.HypothesisIndividuals with increased BMI (greater than 25) are more susceptible to severe Clostridioides Difficile infection (CDI).MethodsData was collected by retrospective chart query. Severe CDI was defined as a white blood cell count of more than 15,000 (x 109 cells/L) or serum creatinine levels greater than 1.5 mg/dL. To examine the association between the primary outcome (severe CDI) and BMI, the factors of age, gender, albumin level, ICU admission, antibiotic use within 3 months of admission, diabetes, and hypertension were also considered. Patients with chronic kidney disease, end-stage liver disease, pregnancy, inflammatory bowel disease, previous gastrointestinal surgeries, active malignancy, and immunosuppressed were excluded.Results219 patients were included in the final study. Of these 52.8% of patients had severe CDI, and 47.2% had non-severe CDI. Compared to normal-weight patients, risk of severe CDI was not influenced by being obese (OR = 1.26, p = 0.5119), overweight (OR = 1.65, p = 0.21), or underweight (OR = 1.05, p = 0.9383). Males had higher odds of having severe CDI when compared with females (OR = 1.76, 95% CI = 1.03 to 3.01, p = 0.0395). Albumin levels greater than 3.0 mg/dL were associated with lower odds of having severe CDI (OR = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.27 to 0.62, p< 0.0001).ConclusionBMI of an individual does not appear to be associated with the severity of CDI.
Journal	Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives
Volume Number	12
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9924641
Issue Number	6
PubMed reference number	36816160
e-ISSN	20009666
DOI	10.55729/2000-9666.1123
Language	English
Publisher	Greater Baltimore Medical Center
Publisher Date	2022-11-07
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). © 2022 Greater Baltimore Medical Center
Subject Keyword	Clostridium difficile Clostridioides difficile Clostridium difficile diarrhea Clostridioides difficile diarrhea Clostridium difficile infection Host-pathogen interactions Obesity Dysbiosis Retrospective studies
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Internal Medicine