Association of Impaired Fasting Glucose and Diabetes with SARS-CoV-2 Spike Antibody Titers after the BNT162b2 Vaccine among Health Care Workers in a Tertiary Hospital in Japan.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Hyperglycemia can alter the activation of innate and acquired immunity, but epidemiological evidence linking hyperglycemia to post-vaccination immunogenicity is limited. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between SARS-CoV-2 spike antibody titers after the COVID-19 vaccine and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and diabetes. METHODS: Participants were 953 health care workers aged 21-75 years who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG antibodies and underwent a health checkup two months after their second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine. IFG was defined as a fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level of 100-125 mg/dL, and diabetes was defined as an FPG level ≥ 126 mg/dL or being under medical care for diabetes. Multivariable linear regression was used to calculate the ratio of the mean. RESULT: Spike IgG antibody titers were lower in the presence of hyperglycemia; the ratios of the means (95% CI) were 1.00, 0.79 (0.60-1.04), and 0.60 (0.42-0.87) for individuals with normoglycemia, IFG, and diabetes, respectively (p trend < 0.001). Restricted cubic spline regression analysis showed that IgG spike antibody titers decreased linearly with increasing concentrations of FPG. CONCLUSION: Diabetes and, to a lesser extent, IFG may be associated with poor humoral immune response after BNT162b2 vaccination.