If you're obese, a coronavirus vaccine is probably less likely to immunize you, so now's a good time to start losing weight
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| Illustration by Lynne Shallcross, Kaiser Health News (Getty Images) |
Looking forward to getting a vaccine for the novel coronavirus when it becomes available? If you're carrying around way too many pounds, it would be a good idea to lose some.
"Vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies can be less effective in obese adults than in the general population, leaving them more vulnerable to infection and illness," Sarah Varney writes for Kaiser Health News. "There is little reason to believe, obesity researchers say, that covid-19 vaccines will be any different."
She quotes Raz Shaikh, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: “Will we have a covid vaccine next year tailored to the obese? No way. Will it still work in the obese? Our prediction is no.”
Obese people are already among those more vulnerable to developing severe covid-19 from the virus, and that probably means they are also more vulnerable to dying from it.
"Vaccines engineered to protect the public from influenza, hepatitis B, tetanus and rabies can be less effective in obese adults than in the general population, leaving them more vulnerable to infection and illness," Sarah Varney writes for Kaiser Health News. "There is little reason to believe, obesity researchers say, that covid-19 vaccines will be any different."
She quotes Raz Shaikh, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: “Will we have a covid vaccine next year tailored to the obese? No way. Will it still work in the obese? Our prediction is no.”
Obese people are already among those more vulnerable to developing severe covid-19 from the virus, and that probably means they are also more vulnerable to dying from it.
