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Big-Data Approaches to Body Weight and Composition

Fundamental to the maintenance of body weight, which is governed by genetic and environmental factors, is the balance between intake and expenditure (energy homeostasis). Whilst genetic studies have identified the brain as having a crucial role in modulating appetite, our mechanistic understanding has arisen from laboratory rodent studies. The proliferation of indirect calorimetry devices provide data on energy expenditure, however, without standardisation, what can we hope to learn from these studies?

June Corrigan (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, USA) describes a big-data approach to understanding metabolic rate in laboratory mice. Similarly, largescale biobanks combined with genome-wide association studies have shed light on the biological mechanisms driving human adiposity. In the second talk, Katherine Kentistou (University of Edinburgh, UK) highlights the genetic underpinnings of body composition and obesity.

This is part of the ‘Physiology of Obesity: From Mechanisms to Medicine’ series.

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