> One thing that I think strongly suggests that this hypothesis is wrong is that there is no strong relation between ACE-inhibitors and Covid mortality.
Perhaps you can clear up something for me. We've all heard how obesity and hypertension are risk factors for covid morbidity. But I could never get a clarification regarding treated vs. untreated hypertension.
AFAIK, many obese people take ACE inhibitors to treat hypertension. If we divide obese people into three groups: (a) untreated, (b) treated with ACE inhibitors, and (c) treated with other medications, how do their covid moribity rates compare?
The answer to treated vs untreated hypertension right now is that we simply do not know. What we do know is that treated hypertensive patients don't appear to have significantly worse outcomes.
This article does a great job outlining the current state of the knowledge on the subject of Covid/hypertension as well as some clinical trials that should be posting results early next year [1].
I haven't seen any studies that try and tease apart all of the complex relationships amongst various comorbidities, but I think we have seen pretty conclusively that obesity is a very significant risk factor.
I had this same question early on and I recall reading somewhere that treated hypertension reduced risk. Ostensibly, even if that was from a credible source, it may not mean much though.
The problem is that the relationship between hypertension, antihypertensives, and Covid is going to be very nuanced and difficult to ascertain without large patient populations to study. One of the very unique aspects of the Covid pandemic is that the NPIs seem to be very effective at damping the spread, so much so that the pool of patients to study keeps moving from region to region every 60 days or so.
By the time you design a study, recruit a pool and wait for some of them to get covid, not enough get it for the study to have enough statistical power.
Perhaps you can clear up something for me. We've all heard how obesity and hypertension are risk factors for covid morbidity. But I could never get a clarification regarding treated vs. untreated hypertension.
AFAIK, many obese people take ACE inhibitors to treat hypertension. If we divide obese people into three groups: (a) untreated, (b) treated with ACE inhibitors, and (c) treated with other medications, how do their covid moribity rates compare?