Endocrine Abstracts

The obesity epidemic, which has persisted for more than 45 years, is now being faced concurrently with the coronavirus pandemic, with deadly effects. The complex changes caused by obesity, such as chronic inflammation, are known to be detrimental in patients with COVID-19. 33.2% of the Georgian population is obese (1). Therefore, we aimed to explore the synergistic effects between obesity and SARS-CoV-2. The objective of our study is to compare the presence of neutralizing antibodies among obese and non-obese individuals 22 weeks after COVID-19 vaccination. The findings should have important implications for fine-tuning revaccination protocols for people with obesity.

Materials and Methods: In-vitro chemiluminescence immunoassays were used to quantify the serum neutralizing antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in 30 individuals in an outpatient setting. Only patients who had received the second COVID-19 vaccine dose at least 22 weeks earlier were included in the study. Patients were divided into two sub-groups according to BMI, with 15 patients with BMI >30 kg/m² in the obese group and 15 patients with BMI <30 kg/m² in the control group. In both sub-groups,40% of patients had recovered from COVID-19. The exclusion criteria for the study were the presence of autoimmune diseases, current use of immunosuppressants, or a history of COVID-19 in the prior 8 weeks. Limitations of this study include the small study population size and the lack of baseline data verifying the presence of antibodies 3 weeks post-vaccination.

Results: The serum samples of immunized patients with obesity showed lower antibody counts than those in the non-obese group. The mean amount of neutralizing antibodies in the obese group was 1,8362 μg/ml, compared with 19,3846 in the control group.

Conclusion: Our study showed a strong correlation between BMI and a sustained immune response, because most immunized patients with obesity had diminished amounts of neutralizing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies after 22 week.