Metabolic Obesity Phenotypes and Risk of Cellulitis: A Cohort Study

No cohort studies have evaluated the effect of obesity on the risk of cellulitis according to metabolic health status. We investigated an association of BMI and metabolic health status with the development of cellulitis. We conducted a cohort study of 171,322 Korean adults who underwent a health checkup examination and were followed from 2011 to 2016 for cellulitis and hospital admission related to cellulitis, which were ascertained through the linkage to the Health Insurance and Review Agency database. Being metabolically healthy was defined as not having any metabolic syndrome component and having a homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance <2.5. During 638,240.4 person-years of follow-up, 14,672 cases of incident cellulitis were identified with 225 cases of cellulitis-related admission. After adjustment for possible confounders, the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (95% CI) for incident cellulitis comparing BMIs 23–24.9, 25–29.9, and ≥30 with a BMI of 18.5–22.9 kg/m2 as the reference were 1.07 (1.02–1.11), 1.09 (1.04-1.13), and 1.19 (1.08–1.31), respectively, whereas the corresponding multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (95% CI) for cellulitis-related admission were 1.55 (1.05–2.3), 2.47 (1.73–3.53), and 4.8 (2.86–8.05), respectively. These associations were consistently observed in both metabolically healthy and unhealthy individuals with no significant interaction. In a large cohort of apparently healthy adults, increased BMI was associated with an increased risk of cellulitis and hospitalization for cellulitis in both metabolically healthy and unhealthy individuals. Obesity appears to be an independent risk factor for cellulitis regardless of metabolic phenotype.