How Chemicals Like PFAS Can Increase Your Risk of Severe COVID-19

The same chronic illnesses associated with exposure to endocrine-disrupting compounds also increase risk of developing severe COVID-19.

By Kathryn Crawford, Middlebury
Sep 3, 2020 5:10 PMNov 3, 2020 4:46 PM
Coronavirus woman mask outdoors - shutterstock
(Credit: Zigres/Shutterstock)

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Nearly a year before the novel coronavirus emerged, Dr. Leonardo Trasande published “Sicker, Fatter, Poorer,” a book about connections between environmental pollutants and many of the most common chronic illnesses. The book describes decades of scientific research showing how endocrine-disrupting chemicals, present in our daily lives and now found in nearly all people, interfere with natural hormones in our bodies. The title sums up the consequences: Chemicals in the environment are making people sicker, fatter and poorer.

As we learn more about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, research is revealing ugly realities about social and environmental effects on health – including how the same chronic illnesses associated with exposure to endocrine-disrupting compounds also increase your risk of developing severe COVID-19.

In the U.S. and abroad, the chronic disease epidemic that was already underway at the start of 2020 meant the population entered into the coronavirus pandemic in a state of reduced health. Evidence is now emerging for the role that environmental quality plays in people’s susceptibility to COVID-19 and their risk of dying from it.

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