People who are obese are not necessarily doomed to suffer problems such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to new research.
The claim comes after new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, USA, in which obese people were asked to gain weight.
It was found that a subset of obese people were protected from common metabolic abnormalities, including insulin resistance, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess liver fat.
In the study, which is published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 20 obese people participated and each was asked to gain just over 1 stone in weight over several months – about 6% of their original weight – to determine how the extra pounds affected their metabolic functions.
All participants were asked to gain weight by eating at fast-food restaurants that were selected by the researchers because they chains served rigorously regulated portion sizes and nutritional information.
At the beginning and the end of the study, the researchers carefully evaluated each study participant’s body composition, insulin sensitivity and ability to regulate blood sugar, liver fat and other measures of metabolic health.
Their findings showed that obese people who did not have the metabolic problems at the beginning of the research did not develop them even after they gained more weight.
The research team discovered that those whose metabolic profiles were in the normal range when the study began remained the same but those whose metabolic profiles were abnormal at the start of the study found that they were significantly worse after they had gained weight.
“This research demonstrates that some obese people are protected from the adverse metabolic effects of moderate weight gain, whereas others are predisposed to develop these problems,” said senior investigator Dr Samuel Klein, director of Washington University’s Center for Human Nutrition.
“This observation is important clinically because about 25% of obese people do not have metabolic complications,” he added. “Our data shows that these people remain metabolically normal even after they gain additional weight.”
The researchers identified that those people with abnormal metabolism accumulated fat in their liver and they also found that participants with normal metabolism expressed more genes that regulate fat production and accumulation.
“These results suggest that the ability of body fat to expand and increase in a healthy way may protect some people from the metabolic problems associated with obesity and weight gain,” explained Dr Klein.
At the end of the study, all participants were helped to lose the weight they had gained.
The Journal of Clinical Investigation 2 January 2015
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