COVID vaccines prevented poor outcomes in people of all sizes

COVID-19 vaccination protected people of all body sizes from hospitalization and death—although vaccinated people with a low or high body mass index (BMI) were at greater risk, according to a study of adults in England published yesterday in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.University of Oxford researchers led the study, which involved 9,171,524 adult primary care patients in England with available body mass index (BMI) data from Dec 8, 2020 (when the COVID-19 vaccine first became available in the United Kingdom), to Nov 17, 2021.

Average patient age was 52 years, and average BMI was 26.7 kilograms per meter squared (kg/m2) (overweight).Elevated risk at low, high BMIs Of the 9,171,524 patients, 566,461 tested positive for COVID-19 during follow-up, 32,808 were hospitalized, and 14,389 died.

Among all patients, 19.2% were unvaccinated, 3.1% had received one vaccine dose, 52.6% had received two doses, and 25.0% had had three doses at least 14 days before enrollment.By the end of the study period, 23.3% of healthy-weight participants, 32.6% of the underweight group, 16.8% of overweight participants, and 14.2% of the obese group remained unvaccinated.

Over 80% of people aged 40 and older who were overweight or obese had received two or three COVID-19 vaccine doses, compared with 70% to 83% of their underweight peers.While vaccine protection varied significantly across BMI categories, overall protection against severe infection was high against hospitalization, with an odds ratio [OR] for underweight of 0.51 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.41 to 0.63), an OR for healthy weight of 0.34 (95% CI, 0.32 to 0.36], an OR for overweight of 0.32 (95 CI, 0.30 to 0.34), and an OR for obesity of 0.32 (95% CI, 0.30 to 0.34).Similarly,