The three COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. are believed to be just as effective with obese people as in the general population.
Previous research has suggested that the vaccines may not be as effective in people with obesity, though that seems not to be the case.
But the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are just as effective in people with obesity, according to a release by The Obesity Society on Wednesday.
Trials found that the shots were up to 96 percent effective at preventing severe illness and death in Americans who are severely overweight.
The data are good news for the 42.4 percent of obese Americans because the condition is considered a risk factor for negative outcomes from COVID-19.
All three of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. are believed to be equally effective in obese people. Experts are still awaiting results for the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been widely used across Europe
For the analysis, published in the journal Obesity, the tea did a sub-group analysis of people with obesity within clinical trial groups of the vaccine.
'Analysis of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy in certain disease sub-groups has been difficult because the number of trial participants with the disease was too small,' said Dr Alexandra Hajduk, associate research scientist in the Department of Internal Medicine (Geriatrics) at Yale School of Medicine in a statement.
'This was not the case for obesity.'
She explained that the prevalence of obesity among trial participants was high and that obesity is highly associated with a risk of hospitalization and death.
'The trial results were able to show that, contrary to concerns of reduced vaccine efficacy in people with obesity, that the vaccines were just as efficacious among persons with obesity compared with persons without obesity,' Haiduk said.
The sub-group analysis of the Pfizer vaccine included 13,218 participants with obesity.
Vaccine efficacy among the obese was determined to be 95.4 percent, compared to 94.8 percent among the non-obese population.
For the Moderna vaccine, efficacy was determined to be 95.8 percent among 901 obese people who
