The challenges of assessing adiposity in a clinical setting.
Emma BörgesonSaeideh TavajohStephan LangeNiels JessenPublished in: Nature reviews. Endocrinology (2024)
To tackle the burden of obesity-induced cardiometabolic disease, the scientific community relies on accurate and reproducible adiposity measurements in the clinic. These measurements guide our understanding of underlying biological mechanisms and clinical outcomes of human trials. However, measuring adiposity and adipose tissue distribution in a clinical setting can be challenging, and different measurement methods pose important limitations. BMI is a simple and high-throughput measurement, but it is associated relatively poorly with clinical outcomes when compared with waist-to-hip and sagittal abdominal diameter measurements. Body composition measurements by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry or MRI scans would be ideal due to their high accuracy, but are not high-throughput. Another important consideration is that adiposity measurements vary between men and women, between adults and children, and between people of different ethnic backgrounds. In this Perspective article, we discuss how these critical challenges can affect our interpretation of research data in the field of obesity and the design and implementation of clinical guidelines.
Keyphrases
- insulin resistance
- dual energy
- body composition
- high throughput
- weight gain
- adipose tissue
- computed tomography
- metabolic syndrome
- body mass index
- type diabetes
- healthcare
- contrast enhanced
- skeletal muscle
- high fat diet
- bone mineral density
- high fat diet induced
- weight loss
- magnetic resonance imaging
- high resolution
- resistance training
- young adults
- electronic health record
- machine learning
- artificial intelligence
- total hip arthroplasty
- data analysis