Scientists Say There Are Two Types of Obesity, And One Is Worse For Our Health

There are two different types of obese people, each with their own effects on our body. The finding could inform a more nuanced approach to diagnose and treat health conditions associated with weight.

The team behind the new research says that the current approach is too simplistic and risks being misleading because it ignores individual biological variations.

One of the newly identified Obesity types is characterized by fat mass and the other by lean muscle mass. The second type was associated with increased inflammation, which has been linked to a higher risk of cancer and other diseases.

J. Andrew Pospisilik, an epigenetics researcher at the Van, says that there are at least two different types of obese people.

Doctors might be able to provide more precise care for patients if the findings are translated into a test.

The TwinsUK research project collected data from more than 150 pairs of twins and the scientists came up with four different types of metabolism that affect body mass.

The results were verified in the lab by using genetically identical mice that ate the same amount of food.

The controls suggest that something is happening outside of the diet, surroundings, and inheritance. Epigenetic markers change how genes are read. Twins with the same genetic code can be different.

Pospisilik says that the findings in the lab almost carbon copied the data from humans.

One of the different types of Obesity was marked by higher lean mass and higher fat, high inflammatory signals, and a strong epigenetic signature.

The second type of obese appears to be triggered by chance, according to what the researchers can tell. The idea that other factors besides genetics and environment make us who we are is known as unexplained phenotypic variation.

Scientists have been thinking about UPV for more than a hundred years, and this study hints at the link.

Pospisilik says that the findings show the power of recognizing subtle differences between people to guide more precise ways to treat disease.

Changes in diet or weight loss surgeries may have different effects depending on the type of obese person. There is a new field of research.

The researchers want to study the two obesity types that they've identified in more detail, which could lead to new guidelines for doctors to use.

According to Pospisilik, there are more than 600 million people with Obesity, yet we don't have a framework for assessing them.

The research was published in a journal.