Scientists at the Imperial College London found that one's obesity risk can be detected using urine samples. The findings of the study provide more insight into how obesity causes other diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.
The researchers decided to focus on the urine because it contains metabolites, a substance produced by metabolism, which can reveal a person's genetic makeup and lifestyle factors. The team analyzed the urine samples from over 2,000 participants from the U.S. and the U.K. They found 29 samples containing metabolites that correlate with the body mass index of the sources.
"Obesity has become a huge problem all over the world, threatening to overwhelm health services and drive life expectancy gains into reverse. Tackling it is an urgent priority and it requires us to have a much better understanding of how body fat and other aspects of biology are related. These findings provide possible starting points for new approaches to preventing and treating obesity and its associated diseases," Professor Jeremy Nicholson, senior study author and director of the MRC-NIHR National Phenome Centre at Imperial College London, said in a press release.
The researchers believe that their findings can pave way to the development of techniques or screening tests that can be used by non-obese people to determine if they are at risk of obesity.
"These people could be at risk of developing obesity and metabolic diseases, and might benefit from personalised preventative interventions," said Professor Paul Elliott, Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial.
One in three U.S. adults is obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Obesity rate is highest among middle-aged adults at 40 percent, followed by the senior-aged at 35 percent. Younger adults, on the other hand, are at 30 percent.
The study was published in the April 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
