Cargando…

Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality

Moderate altitude (1000–2000 m above sea level) residence is emerging as a protective factor from the mortality of various causes, including of cardiovascular diseases. Conversely, mortality from certain respiratory diseases is higher at these altitudes than in lowlands. These divergent outcomes cou...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Burtscher, Johannes, Millet, Gregoire P., Leitner, Barbara, Burtscher, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9736022/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36498148
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192316074
_version_ 1784846918638108672
author Burtscher, Johannes
Millet, Gregoire P.
Leitner, Barbara
Burtscher, Martin
author_facet Burtscher, Johannes
Millet, Gregoire P.
Leitner, Barbara
Burtscher, Martin
author_sort Burtscher, Johannes
collection PubMed
description Moderate altitude (1000–2000 m above sea level) residence is emerging as a protective factor from the mortality of various causes, including of cardiovascular diseases. Conversely, mortality from certain respiratory diseases is higher at these altitudes than in lowlands. These divergent outcomes could indicate either beneficial or detrimental effects of altitude on the mortality of COVID-19 that primarily infects the respiratory tract but results in multi-organ damage. Previous epidemiological data indeed suggest divergent outcomes of moderate to high altitude residence in various countries. Confounding factors, such as variations in the access to clinical facilities or selection biases of investigated populations, may contribute to the equivocation of these observations. We interrogated a dataset of the complete population of an Alpine country in the center of Europe with relatively similar testing and clinical support conditions across altitude-levels of residence (up to around 2000 m) to assess altitude-dependent mortality from COVID-19 throughout 2020. While a reduced all-cause mortality was confirmed for people living higher than 1000 m, no differences in the mortality from COVID-19 between the lowest and the highest altitude regions were observed for the overall population and the population older than 60 years as well. Conversely, COVID-19 mortality seems to have been reduced in the very old (>85 years) women at moderate altitudes.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9736022
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-97360222022-12-11 Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality Burtscher, Johannes Millet, Gregoire P. Leitner, Barbara Burtscher, Martin Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Moderate altitude (1000–2000 m above sea level) residence is emerging as a protective factor from the mortality of various causes, including of cardiovascular diseases. Conversely, mortality from certain respiratory diseases is higher at these altitudes than in lowlands. These divergent outcomes could indicate either beneficial or detrimental effects of altitude on the mortality of COVID-19 that primarily infects the respiratory tract but results in multi-organ damage. Previous epidemiological data indeed suggest divergent outcomes of moderate to high altitude residence in various countries. Confounding factors, such as variations in the access to clinical facilities or selection biases of investigated populations, may contribute to the equivocation of these observations. We interrogated a dataset of the complete population of an Alpine country in the center of Europe with relatively similar testing and clinical support conditions across altitude-levels of residence (up to around 2000 m) to assess altitude-dependent mortality from COVID-19 throughout 2020. While a reduced all-cause mortality was confirmed for people living higher than 1000 m, no differences in the mortality from COVID-19 between the lowest and the highest altitude regions were observed for the overall population and the population older than 60 years as well. Conversely, COVID-19 mortality seems to have been reduced in the very old (>85 years) women at moderate altitudes. MDPI 2022-12-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9736022/ /pubmed/36498148 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192316074 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Burtscher, Johannes
Millet, Gregoire P.
Leitner, Barbara
Burtscher, Martin
Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality
title Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality
title_full Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality
title_fullStr Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality
title_full_unstemmed Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality
title_short Health Benefits of Residence at Moderate Altitude Do Not Reduce COVID-19 Mortality
title_sort health benefits of residence at moderate altitude do not reduce covid-19 mortality
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9736022/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36498148
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192316074
work_keys_str_mv AT burtscherjohannes healthbenefitsofresidenceatmoderatealtitudedonotreducecovid19mortality
AT milletgregoirep healthbenefitsofresidenceatmoderatealtitudedonotreducecovid19mortality
AT leitnerbarbara healthbenefitsofresidenceatmoderatealtitudedonotreducecovid19mortality
AT burtschermartin healthbenefitsofresidenceatmoderatealtitudedonotreducecovid19mortality