What Might Urine Tell Us About Obesity?

Researchers at the Imperial College London have discovered that the risk of obesity can be detected via urine samples. The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Statistics show that close to one in three U.S. adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Furthermore, the percentage of children aged 6-11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7 percent in 1980 to nearly 18 percent in 2012.

For the study, researchers specifically focused on urine that contains metabolites, otherwise known as a substance that's produced by metabolism and that can reveal a person's genetic makeup and lifestyle factors. They analyzed the urine samples from over 2,000 participants in the U.S. and the U.K. and discovered that 29 samples contained metabolites that correlate with the body mass index of 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 news release.

The researchers said they believe that these findings could one day pave the way for the development of techniques or screenings in testing that can be used by non-obese people to help them determine if they are also at risk of obesity.

"These people could be at risk of developing obesity and metabolic diseases, and might benefit from personalised preventative interventions," concluded Professor Paul Elliott, Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Imperial.