Is the Metabolically Healthy Obesity Phenotype an Irrelevant Artifact for Public Health?

Abstract

Some obese persons do not develop (at least in the short term) the metabolic complications of obesity that are thought to be causally linked to cardiovascular events or premature mortality. This phenomenon has been termed "metabolically healthy obesity" (MHO), and it has received much attention recently, to the extent that some authors argue that "new metrics" must be developed to estimate the risk associated with obesity beyond body mass index. In this commentary, we argue that the MHO phenotype is not benign and as such has very limited relevance as a public health target. More efforts must be allocated to reducing the distal and actual causal agents that lead to weight gain, instead of the current disproportionate scientific interest in the biological processes that explain the heterogeneity of obesity.