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Review
. 2022 Oct 17;12(10):1617.
doi: 10.3390/life12101617.

SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza Vaccines in People with Excessive Body Mass-A Narrative Review

Julia Drożdżyńska  1 , Wiktoria Jakubowska  1 , Marika Kemuś  1 , Martyna Krokowska  1 , Konrad Karpezo  1 , Marcelina Wiśniewska  1 , Paweł Bogdański  2 , Damian Skrypnik  2
Affiliations
Review

SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza Vaccines in People with Excessive Body Mass-A Narrative Review

Julia Drożdżyńska et al. Life (Basel). .

Abstract

In the face of a growing number of overweight people and two widely known viral diseases, SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, it is crucial to be aware of the impact of excess body weight on immunisation against these diseases. The aim of this review is to show the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza vaccines in overweight and obese patients. Excessive adipose tissue releases cytokines and maintains local hypoxia, which causes persistent low-grade inflammation. These factors make excess body mass patients' immune systems weaker. Under such conditions, the humoral response becomes less efficient, leading to a weakened ability to fight against infection and an increased risk of developing lower antibody titres. Vaccines help to reduce morbidity both in normal-weight and excess body mass people, although most studies show that patients with higher BMI tend to lose the antibodies produced more quickly. It is shown that the most effective vaccines (in terms of preventing the infection and potential post-illness complications) are the BNT162b2 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 and the inactivated influenza vaccine against influenza among both obese and non-obese subjects.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; antibody titre; influenza; vaccine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The study flow diagram.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The influence of obesity on the storage of lipids in the thymus.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Immune response in excess body mass patients summary; IFN: interferon; IFNγ: interferon-gamma; IL-10: interleukin-10; IL-4: interleukin-4; IL-6: interleukin-6; MCP-1: monocyte chemoattractant protein-1; NK cells: natural killer cells; TNFα: tumour necrosis factor-alpha.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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