The one thing that will prevent your flu jab working
The flu jab does not protect overweight people from infection, new research published in the scientific journal mBio has shown
The experiment found flu vaccines protected lean mice but did not work on bigger rats. Overweight animals were more susceptible to viruses, with the virus penetrating more deeply into lungs, making it harder to repair damage caused.
This raises concerns over the effectiveness of vaccines in people who suffer obesity. Vaccines are the main defence in combating flu epidemics and obese people have an increased risk of severe flu and complications, including hospitalisation and death.
Dr Stacey Schultz-Cherry of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, lead author of the report, said, ‘’This is the first study to show that current strategies to bolster the effectiveness of flu vaccines protected lean mice from a serious illness but fell short of protecting obese mice from infections.
“There is a critical public health need to translate these findings to humans and understand vaccine response in this growing segment of the population.”
With the World Health Organisation estimating 10 per cent of adults globally are classified as obese, strategies to bolster the vaccine include increase the dose and adding substances called adjuvants to them, which enhance the body's immune response.
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