- Obesity affects people all over the world and puts them at risk of developing certain health problems.
- Metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) describes when a person has obesity but also a healthy metabolic profile.
- New research suggests that people with obesity but who are also metabolically healthy are still at higher risk of health problems such as heart failure and respiratory diseases.
Obesity is prevalent in populations all over the world. In 2017–2018, 42.2% Trusted Source of the population of the United States had obesity.
In determining someone’s risk of certain conditions, medical professionals do not only look at a person’s weight. They also examine metabolic profiles, which look at other health risk factors, including cholestrol levels, blood glucose levels, and blood pressure.
A new study in the journal Diabetologia examined health risks for people who have obesity but who lack other metabolic risk factors, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
The findings suggest that people who have obesity should still seek to maintain a moderate weight even if they lack other risk factors for poor health outcomes.