Reply

We thank Drs Bechard and Mehta for their interest in our study regarding body habitus and the risk of death for children with sepsis. We agree that children with obesity are a vulnerable group and face many challenges in an intensive care unit setting in a great number of aspects of care. However, we disagree that we labeled our findings as an “obesity paradox.” We stated that “There was no association between body habitus and mortality in critically ill children with sepsis.” We believe the confusion arose from the second paragraph of the discussion, where we stated, “Our mortality findings are similar to some studies in adults that report an obesity paradox or reduced mortality for patients who are overweight or obese with sepsis that is not retained after controlling for confounding variables.” Potentially it would have been clearer if we had said there have been studies in adult patients that initially reported a red uced mortality for patients who are overweight or obese with sepsis.
Source: The Journal of Pediatrics - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Letters to the Editor Source Type: research