A Retrospective Analysis of Hyperlipidemia and COVID-19 Outcomes Investigated in a Rural Midwestern Population

Abstract

BackgroundCOVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus discovered in 2019. Its impact on the world continues to be studied due to the significant death toll of the disease. As the COVID-19 pandemic remains ongoing, examining the association of COVID-19 with comorbidities and resulting mortality is necessary. This study focuses on population health outcomes with COVID-19 infection and hyperlipidemia (total cholesterol greater than or equal to 200 mg/dL) as a comorbidity, including potential associations with age and sex. MethodsAs a retrospective analytical study, patients were divided into three populations based on COVID-19 and/or hyperlipidemia based on the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10) codes reported in the electronic medical record system at Freeman Health System (FHS) in Southwest Missouri from April 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021. Wald's methods and two sample proportion summary hypotheses with confidence intervals (CIs) were used for comparison. The populations were subdivided and analyzed for age and sex differences. ResultsPatients with both COVID-19 and hyperlipidemia had a higher mortality rate than patients with COVID-19 and without hyperlipidemia and patients with hyperlipidemia and without COVID-19; patients with COVID-19 and without hyperlipidemia had a higher mortality rate than patients with hyperlipidemia and without COVID-19. All comparisons across these populations were statistically significant (p-value < 0.05). While increased age was associated with increased mortality in all groups, sex was not predictive in this regard. ConclusionOur study provides insights into variables affecting COVID-19 outcomes in a rural Midwestern population by showing how the comorbidity hyperlipidemia contributes to increased mortality.

Comorbidities affecting re-admission and survival in COVID-19: Application of joint frailty model

“…Furthermore, we found that hyperlipedemia increased the risk of mortality. It is concordant with other studies [25][26][27]. Its possible mechanism is that when the lung is involved and the blood oxygen level decreases, one of the main compensatory mechanisms of the body to deliver enough oxygen to the tissues is to increase the cardiac output by increasing the heart rates and increasing the stroke volume.…”