Hormonal
Elevated GDF15 plasma levels are not a causal factor in cardiometabolic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, but rather serve as a biomarker of metabolic stress.
Do not rely on GDF15 levels to predict or treat obesity directly. While high GDF15 is a strong warning sign for heart disease and mortality, increasing it artificially (as done in animal studies) does not appear to cause weight loss in humans. Focus on established metabolic health markers instead.
Taken together, our data do not support a role for elevated GDF15 concentrations as a causal factor in human cardiometabolic disease but support its role as a biomarker of metabolic stress.
Why this rating
Large-scale Mendelian Randomization and Protein-Truncating Variant analysis in over 300,000 participants provides high-confidence genetic evidence.
Source
Integrated analyses of growth differentiation factor-15 concentration and cardiometabolic diseases in humans
Susanna Lemmelä et al. · eLife · 2022
DOI 10.7554/elife.76272
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