Preclinical and clinical obesity: prevalence, associations to cardiometabolic risk and response to lifestyle intervention in NHANES and the EPIC-Potsdam and TULIP studies

TL;DR

This study shows that most people with BMI-based obesity are classified as clinical obesity, which increases their risk of heart disease and diabetes, but lifestyle changes can reduce this risk.

Contribution

The study provides the first large-scale validation of new clinical obesity criteria and their association with disease risks and lifestyle intervention outcomes.

Findings

80% of individuals with BMI-defined obesity meet clinical obesity criteria and have higher risks for cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

A 9-month lifestyle intervention reduced the proportion of clinical obesity from 71% to 57%.

Preclinical obesity is associated with increased type 2 diabetes risk but not cardiovascular disease risk.

Abstract

An expert commission (The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission on Clinical Obesity) proposed novel diagnostic criteria distinguishing between preclinical and clinical obesity and suggesting treatment indications for the latter. However, the proportional assignment to preclinical and clinical obesity in adults with BMI-defined obesity, the associated disease risks, as well as the response to lifestyle interventions are not well known. Here we show that among those with BMI-based obesity, 100% are confirmed to have obesity by at least one other anthropometric measure in NHANES 2017-2018 and the prospective EPIC-Potsdam cohort. More than 80% of adults with confirmed obesity meet the criteria for clinical obesity and have 2.8-fold increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease and 7.9-fold increased risk for type 2 diabetes compared to adults without obesity and not fulfilling clinical criteria. Adults with preclinical obesity have no elevated cardiovascular disease risk, but type 2 diabetes risk is markedly increased. A 9-months lifestyle intervention (Tübingen Lifestyle Intervention Programme) decreases the proportion of clinical obesity from 71% to 57%, and that of prediabetes from 52% to 29%.

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission on Clinical Obesity proposed new diagnostic criteria distinguishing preclinical and clinical obesity. Here the authors report that according to these criteria 80% of individuals with BMI-defined obesity are classified with clinical obesity and have increased risk for cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. A lifestyle intervention can lower the prevalence of clinical obesity.

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