Pfizer vaccine may be less effective in people with obesity, says study (about half the antibodies)

[Celerity]

Healthcare workers with obesity found to produce only about half the antibodies healthy people do

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/28/pfizer-vaccine-less-effective-obesity-study



The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may be less effective in people with obesity, data suggests. Italian researchers have discovered that healthcare workers with obesity produced only about half the amount of antibodies in response to a second dose of the jab compared with healthy people. Although it is too soon to know what this means for the efficacy of the vaccine, it might imply that people with obesity need an additional booster dose to ensure they are adequately protected against coronavirus.

Previous research has suggested that obesity – which is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30 – increases the risk of dying of Covid-19 by nearly 50%, as well as increasing the risk of ending up in hospital by 113%.

Some of this may be because people with obesity often have other underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes, that increase their risk from the coronavirus, but excess body fat can also cause metabolic changes, such as insulin resistance and inflammation, which make it harder for the body to fight off infections.

This constant state of low-grade inflammation can also weaken certain immune responses, including those launched by the B and T cells that trigger a protective response following vaccination. Separate research has shown that the flu vaccine is only half as effective in people with obesity compared to those who are a healthy weight. The new study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, provides the first direct evidence to suggest a similar problem might occur with Covid-19 vaccines.

snip



The study:



https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.24.21251664v1.full.pdf

[UTUSN]

1. K&R for, oh good grief something else to worry about!

[Celerity]

3. The U.S. Obesity Rate Now Tops 40% (and that was Pre-COVID-19)

https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2020-02-27/us-obesity-rate-passes-40-percent


Might be 45% or more now, after a year of many leading even more sedentary lives that they already did.

[UTUSN]

5. Unfortunately, "they" is *me*. For years I sniffed at those who flop for hours watching movies on

the couch.

Priding myself on always "doing something." Until I figured out that my vaunted "activity" consists mostly of hours sitting in front of the laptop, much of the time with *DU*!1 ------------Makes my superiority moot.

Plus, that it's turned into a mystery how many fellow DUers have post counts over 100K when I don't see their posts that much, while my years' worth of laptop time are barely half of that!1

[Hekate]

2. KnR

[JI7]

4. Obesity is a huge problem in this country

It affects so many things . And there are ways to help deal with it but right wingers are resistant to anything that would actually do good .

I'm sure obesity is one of the biggest reasons we have high Covid Death numbers compared to some other countries . Also probably why many of the Asian countries have low numbers.

And this is about Covid but I think Obesity makes almost every other health issues end up being worse than it would for people of more healthier weight.

[KewlKat]

6. I wonder if this will also apply to the Moderna vaccine?

[Klaralven]

7. Why is the amount of vaccine injected not dependent upon weight?

For many drugs, the dosage is scaled depending on the size of the patient.

But for vaccines, this seems not to be the case. It not obvious why a larger person shouldn't be given a larger dose?

Also, an obese person is likely to have more fat cells in the muscle where the vaccine is injected. Would the vaccine be absorbed in the fat cells and diluted? After all, the mRNA vaccines are encased in lipid (fat) shells.

[liberalla]

8. You ask some very good questions. I hope we get more information soon.

K&R