Naveed Sattar
Presentation: COVID-19, the Cardiovascular System and Obesity
There is now plentiful research to suggest obesity is a risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes. These data include small scale studies in single hospitals to national datasets. This talk will cover potential reasons for this link, focussing on how obesity may not only enhance chances of infection (linked to social deprivation), potentially increase viral load, and perturbs the immune response. It will also discuss multiple effects of obesity to lessen the body's ability to cope with the systemic effects of the hyperimmune response when it occurs. Such effects include impairments in metabolic, cardiovascular, respiratory, and haematological responses (1). In so doing, the talk will advance the need for more effective management and prevention of obesity to lessen chances of severe COVID-19 reaction during subsequent waves of the pandemic.
(1). Sattar N, McInnes IB, McMurray JJV. Obesity Is a Risk Factor for Severe COVID-19 Infection: Multiple Potential Mechanisms. Circulation. 2020;142(1):4-6. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.047659
Biography
Naveed Sattar graduated in Medicine from the University of Glasgow in 1990 and obtained his PhD in 1998. A year later he was appointed Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow and an Honorary Consultant in Metabolic Medicine at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He was promoted to Professor of Metabolic Medicine in 2005, elected to the Royal College of Pathologists the same year, and to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in 2006. In 2016, he became a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci).
His research focuses on the pathogenesis, assessment and treatment of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disorders. Over the last 20 years, working with numerous colleagues, he has generated multiple relevant papers including with the emerging risk factor consortium and diabetes registries in Scotland and Sweden. He has also contributed to multiple trials in the lifestyle arena, including DIRECT, EUROFIT and UPBEAT, including mechanistic papers. He enjoys challenging conventional wisdom and deconstructing ideas into digestible science. His research has been funded by Diabetes UK, The Chief Scientist Office in Scotland, the Medical Research Council, and the British Heart Foundation.
He was the Chair of the SIGN cardiovascular prevention guidelines in 2015, on the editorial Board of JBS3 recommendations in 2014, and has contributed to several European guidelines relevant to CV risk in diabetes. He was an Associate Editor/Advisory Board member for Diabetologia (2010 to 2017), on the International Advisory Board for Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology (2014 to 2018) and is currently on the editorial board for BMC Medicine and an Associate Editor for Circulation. He was the 2011 recipient of the Minkowski Prize and will be the 2020 recipient of the Camillo Golgi Prize form the EASD.