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Obesity

Illuminating the ‘healthy obese’ phenotype

Some individuals with obesity have a healthy metabolic profile and are not at increased risk for diabetes or cardiovascular disease. The mechanisms behind this phenomenon are poorly understood, but recent work now characterizes the biological underpinnings of the metabolically healthy obese phenotype.

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Fig. 1: Two individuals with the same BMI can have very different risks for T2D.

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Acknowledgements

A.J. is supported by the Swedish Research Council (2019-01497), the Swedish Heart-Lung foundation (20200687) and the Swedish Cancer Society (22 2222 Pj). M.R.-A. is supported by the Marcus Borgström and Åke Wiberg Foundations.

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Correspondence to Åsa Johansson.

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Rask-Andersen, M., Johansson, Å. Illuminating the ‘healthy obese’ phenotype. Nat Metab 5, 193–194 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-022-00733-3

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