What Exactly Is a Comorbidity?
You may have heard the medical term “comorbidity” when it comes to health conditions and aren’t quite sure what it means. Comorbidities, or co-occurring conditions, are more common than you’d think.
What are comorbidities?
“Comorbidities are two or more distinct health conditions that occur at the same time,” says Irina Benenson, D.N.P., F.N.P.-C., a certified family nurse practitioner and associate professor at Rutgers School of Nursing. “They may exist together because of shared risk factors.” For example, diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure are common comorbidities, which share obesity as the underlying risk factor.
Examples of comorbidity
There are many common conditions that co-exist such as: High blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and arthritis. Anyone can develop comorbidities, though the risk increases as we get older. Not surprisingly, that’s because older adults are more likely to have multiple health conditions than younger people. Also not surprising is that research has found that people with comorbidities may experience reduced quality of life.
While comorbidities typically refer to chronic conditions, they also may affect the severity of short-term, or acute, illnesses such as the flu or COVID. “People with underlying conditions such as high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes may become very ill with COVID,” says Carman Ciervo, D.O., F.A.C.O.F.P., chief physician executive, Cooper Health Care Alliance, Cooper University Healthcare. “A risk of severe illness or death from COVID increases with the number of comorbidities they have.”
What’s the difference between comorbidity and a complication?
The terms are sometimes confused, but they’re not the same thing. Comorbidities are health conditions that are present at the same time as another. A complication is a negative effect that occurs due to a disease, or following a procedure or treatment, says Ciervo. For example, if you have untreated high cholesterol, it may lead to complications such as heart attack or stroke. If you have gallbladder surgery and comorbidities such as high blood pressure, your risk of complications, such as infection, is greater.
How does comorbidity affect treatment?
Comorbidities can make treatment and management of each health condition more complex. For example, some medications that are prescribed for one condition may have a negative effect on the other condition. “When you prescribe insulin for diabetes for a person with obesity, the medication may cause weight gain, which then worsens the baseline condition of obesity,” says Benenson.
Comorbidities also require more frequent visits to your healthcare provider, which increases your out-of-pocket healthcare costs. You’ll also probably need to visit separate specialists to manage each condition, as well as to take different medications for each. That’s a challenging part of treatment because combining some medications may cause side effects or cause one drug to be less effective, says Benenson.
Can you prevent comorbidities?
Being aware that certain health conditions can lead to others may help you take steps to prevent development of other diseases. “Some conditions do have a genetic predisposition. But for many conditions, we may be able to mitigate your risk with lifestyle changes,” says Ciervo. For example, if you’re diagnosed with high blood pressure, you may work on improving your fitness and diet, such as reducing the amount of sodium you eat. Aiming to reduce hypertension may help you from developing comorbidities such as heart disease in the long-run.
If diagnosed with a chronic health condition, it’s also important to advocate for yourself. If you see multiple specialists, make sure all your doctors know about all your health conditions and medications (including over-the-counter supplements), even if they don’t ask, says Benenson. Being proactive may help prevent the development of comorbidities.
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