The Efficacy of COVID-19 Vaccines in People with Obesity: A Systematic
Review and Meta-analysis
Abstract
Background: COVID-19 vaccine is critical in preventing SARS-CoV-2
infection and transmission. However, obesity’s effect on immune
responses to COVID-19 vaccines is still unknown. Methods: We performed a
meta-analysis of the literature and compared immune responses to
COVID-19 vaccines among persons with and without obesity. We used
Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library to identify all
related studies up to April 2022. The Stata.14 software was used to
analyze the selected data. Results: Totally, 11 studies were included in
the present meta-analysis. Five of them provided absolute values of
antibody titers in the obese group and non-obese group. Overall, we
found that the obese population was significantly associated with lower
antibody titers (SMD = -0.228, 95% CI (-0.437, -0.019),
P<0.001) after COVID-19 vaccination. Significant heterogeneity
was present in most pooled analyses but was reduced after subgroup
analyses. No publication bias was observed in the present analysis. The
Trim and Fill method did not change the results in the primary analysis.
Conclusion: The present meta-analysis suggested that obesity was
significantly associated with decreased responses to SARS-CoV-2
vaccines. Future studies should be performed to unravel this
relationship to prevent COVID-19 infection and transmission.