Prevalence of Metabolically-Obese Normal-Weight Worldwide: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Background: Obesity causes the loss of body homeostasis and pre-disposes to the development of disease; some individuals present alterations described even having a normal body mass index (BMI), and these are called thin metabolically obese. The objective was to carry out a systematic review with meta-analysis to determine the prevalence of metabolically-obese normal-weight (MONW) worldwide. Methods: The search for studies was conducted from May to June 2022 in the EMBASE, PubMed, WOS, and Scopus databases. The pu-rification and ordering of data were carried out using the Excel 2016 program, later a meta-analysis with the Stata version 17 program. Results: A total of 408,251 people with normal BMI were identi-fied, of whom 78,054 had a metabolic disorder, and the prevalence after the meta-analysis was 26.78% (95% confidence interval: 18.45-36.03) with high heterogeneity (I2 = 99.86%). Conclusion: The findings of the systematic review confirm a high prevalence of MONW worldwide.