Research
Mixed
Current standard-of-care obesity treatments (lifestyle, pharmacotherapy, surgery) exhibit high variability in weight loss outcomes, necessitating a precision medicine approach based on biological markers to predict individual response.
Standard obesity treatments (diet, drugs, surgery) do not work equally for everyone. The paper argues that future care will use biological markers (genetics, microbiome, etc.) to predict who will respond to which treatment, moving away from a 'one-size-fits-all' BMI-based approach.
ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Each of these treatment strategies has been shown to have wide variability in terms of weight loss outcomes, suggesting that this current approach does not address the comprehensive and individualized care that patients with obesity need.
Why this rating
Review article summarizing multiple 'omics studies; evidence is promising but applicability to individualized therapy remains limited.
Source
Precision Medicine for Obesity
Lizeth Cifuentes et al. · Digestive Disease Interventions · 2021
DOI 10.1055/s-0041-1729945
narrative_reviewCited 34×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Genetic variants (SNPs) associated with obesity have modest individual effects, but aggregated into genetic risk scores, they can interact with environmental factors (diet, activity) to amplify obesity risk.Moderate
- Pharmacogenomics can partially explain heterogeneous responses to weight loss medications by identifying genetic variants that affect drug metabolism or receptor binding.Moderate
- Gut microbiota composition influences energy metabolism and food intake, and specific microbial signatures may predict response to dietary interventions and bariatric surgery.Moderate
Related findings · Mixed
- Bariatric surgery (VSG and RYGB) is the most effective and sustainable treatment for obesity, producing marked and sustained weight loss that non-surgical interventions cannot match.Strong
- Severely protein-deficient diets (2–3% energy) induce lean body mass loss and metabolic imbalance, whereas adequate protein intake (0.66 g/kg/d minimum) is a prerequisite for maintaining muscle, bone, and physiological function.Strong
- For patients with Class III obesity (BMI >39.9 kg/m2), metabolic bariatric surgery (MBS) is significantly more effective than any currently approved medication, with BilioPancreatic Diversion (BPD) showing the highest estimated weight loss.Strong
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