Research tracking 200,000 middle-aged Brits suggests that fat distribution in some people only classed as ‘overweight’ puts them at highest health risk, and could benefit from weight loss jabs
Scientists say people who are overweight but not obese could get weight loss jabs after a study identified people most at risk of weight-related health problems
The research looking at health data on 200,000 middle-aged Brits showed some who were only deemed as overweight by the official body mass index (BMI) measure were actually at greater risk of obesity-related complications such as cancer and Type 2 diabetes.
Currently around two thirds of UK adults are either overweight or obese according to BMI but experts say a more detailed analysis of their risk should be carried out. The NHS is currently rationing appetite-suppressing injections for the most obese and unwell.
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Academics including from the Cambridge University and London’s Queen Mary University looked at health data from participants in the UK Biobank research project, including more than 2,000 health and lifestyle factors. They ranged from simple size measurements to age, sex as well as blood biomarkers.
Dr Kamil Demircan, from Queen Mary University of London, said: “We actually observed that a considerable proportion of individuals [at highest risk] were living with overweight rather than obesity. These constitute a population of individuals who may be overlooked if we only look at BMI and not other risk factors.”
The BMI measure – calculated by dividing someone’s weight by their height – is used to decide who should be prescribed weight loss jabs but has been criticised for not properly assessing fat distribution. The Mirror reported last month on a study suggesting BMI may be wrongly categorising millions as overweight or obese.
This latest research developed a tool that predicts which people are at high risk of suffering from obesity-related complications and the experts behind it say it could complement BMI.
They included UK Biobank participants with a BMI score of 27 and over – meaning they are classed as overweight or obese. The team suspected that some people who are overweight can have excess body fat which can lead to “dramatic metabolic complications”.
Their work, published in the journal Nature Medicine, identified 20 commonly collected health measures which can be used to predict 18 different obesity-related complications. The tool they developed, dubbed Obscore, was found to perform well at predicting all of these 18 outcomes and was tested against data from other studies.
Co-author Professor Nick Wareham, co-director of the Institute of Metabolic Science at Cambridge, said: “For the first time in my clinical career, we actually have some efficacious therapies for obesity, but we are operating in the context of an NHS which has finite resources, so we need accurate and fair mechanisms for allocating those resources.
“And NHS England is starting very conservatively, which I think is appropriate, and is currently saying it will be eligible for those people at highest clinical need.”
“So this is step on a journey that we think we need to move on – about how we evolve decision-making for weight reduction therapies. I think what needs to happen next is to take this very helpful score and to incorporate it, as the team have done with evidence from trials to show that people (are) not only at risk, but estimate what their capacity to benefit is.”
It comes after a previous study suggested BMI wrongly classified 34% as obese, while 53% were wrongly classified as overweight. It was compared with a gold-standard measure which scanned for distribution of body fat, muscle and bone, as well as factoring in a person’s age.
If the Italian study applied to the UK population, it would suggest around five million Brits have been wrongly told they are obese.
