Studying the Immune Profile and Susceptibility to Microbial Infections in Obese Adults

Objectives: This study aims at studying the effect of adult obesity on immunologic profile and susceptibility to microbial infections.

Materials and Methods: This work was applied on 50 obese subjects visited to the Nutrition Center of Marjan hospital in Babylon province-Iraq from October 2014 to January 2015. The samples were consisted of 39 females and 11 males with age range 20-60 years. This study involved also 30 apparently health subjects with normal weight as controls consisted of 21 males and 9 females with age range 22-50 years. Body mass index for each subject was estimated as obesity determinant, then blood samples were collected from obese and control to estimate the concentrations of interleukin-2 (IL-2), interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), C3 & C4 complement components, and phagocytic index. Also, estimation of anti-streptolysin-O (ASO) & anti-measles-IgG concentrations were used as indicators for microbial infections.

Results: The result of IL-2 was significantly (p˂ 0.05) lower in obese subjects than controls, while IFN-γ was not significant decreased in obese group, while concentrations of C3 & C4 were a highly significant increased (p˂0.001) in obese group, phagocytic index was a highly significant decreased in obese subjects (p˂0.001). Regarding the susceptibility to microbial infections the concentrations of ASO & anti-measles virus IgG in obese group were a highly significant more than controls.

Conclusions: This result may provide clear evidence that obese subjects are more susceptible to microbial infections than normal subjects.