Edging Toward Precision Obesity Medicine as ECO2025 Closes

This week the European Congress on Obesity drew spectacular crowds. Of course, hanging in there for the final day of any congress is a challenge, but the closing day of ECO2025 rewarded stalwarts with excellent insights into the promise of precision obesity medicine.

The Genetic Contribution to Obesity

Although it was not intended as a session on precision obesity medicine, the closing plenary for ECO2025 certainly offered insights. Ruth Loos has devoted much of her career to studying the genetic basis for obesity. She told us that genetic factors are quite helpful in explaining variations in obesity risk – at least in part.

Thus we know from genetic association studies that the brain is a key regulator of adiposity and body weight. Likewise, we know the genetic factors that affect body weight overlap between children and adults. Further, genetics may help explain some of the heterogeneity in obesity.

So for precision medicine, genetic subtypes may represent innate metabolism, which might allow for matching clinical strategies, including lifestyle, for treatment and prevention.

Symposium Prelude

The perfect prelude to a stunning display of scientific prowess by Dr. Loos was the symposium on precision medicine for obesity. Nele Steenackers presented on precision nutrition in obesity care. Andres Acosta offered the insights he has pursued by studying the effects of pharmacotherapy to obesity phenotypes. Big data came into view from the SOPHIA project, presented by Carel le Roux. And then finally, Bart Van der Schueren explored the therapeutic consequences of precision medicine in persons living with type 1 diabetes and/or obesity. It’s a lot.

Clearly the growth of knowledge to support precision obesity medicine is impressive and it is gaining traction. But, routine implementation in clinical practice is far from our present reality. Clinicians do the best they can while awaiting definitive guidelines.

Click here for some of Loos’s recent work on this subject and here for an overview by Acosta. For a new review of precision nutrition for cardiometabolic disease, click here.

The Crowd at ECO2025, photograph by Ted Kyle / ConscienHealth

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May 16, 2025