Obesity and chronic disease: Always offender or often just accomplice?

Abstract

Over a decade ago, the finding of a form of low-grade systemic inflammation (metaflammation) associated with obesity, insulin resistance and chronic disease proffered a causal explanation for the latter. However, recent work has shown that metaflammation is also associated with several modern lifestyle-related and environmental inducers, with or without obesity. Here, we present accumulating data to show a link between metaflammation and a number of non-microbial environmental and lifestyle stimulants, both with and without obesity. This implies that obesity may often be an accomplice to, as much as an offender in, major metabolic disease. The real (albeit distal) cause of such a disease appears to lie in aspects of the modern techno-industrial environment driving unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. If true, this suggests that while individual weight loss may be a component of chronic disease management, it may be neither necessary nor sufficient to reduce the problem at a population level. Greater multidisciplinary and policy input is needed to modify the economic and political drivers of the modern, obesogenic environment.