Metabolic and nonmetabolic diseases caused by obesity
The researchers aimed to investigate the effects of adiposity on metabolic and nonmetabolic diseases caused by obesity.
They used data from 176,899 individuals in the FinnGen project in Finland and from over 500,000 individuals in the UK Biobank database.
They performed Mendelian randomization studies to investigate the causal association between BMI, body fat percentage, favorable adiposity alleles, and unfavorable adiposity alleles with 37 disease outcomes.
Of these 37 chronic diseases associated with obesity, 11 diseases were directly related to the metabolic effect of adiposity (where favorable adiposity or unfavorable adiposity gene variants had opposite effects). Nine other diseases were unrelated to the metabolic effects of adiposity.
For most of the remaining diseases – for example, Alzheimer’s disease and different cancers – it was difficult to draw firm conclusions about the respective roles of favorable adiposity and unfavorable adiposity gene variants.
The study was funded by Diabetes UK, the UK Medical Research Council, the World Cancer Research Fund, and the National Cancer Institute. Author disclosures are listed with the article.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.