ArticleMolecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.)2017
Obesity paradox, obesity orthodox, and the metabolic syndrome: An approach to unity.
Article in Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- No obesity paradox in patients with community-acquired pneumonia - secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.Nutrition & diabetes · 2022Trial
- Obesity and respiratory diseases: mechanisms, phenotypes, and clinical implications.Diabetology & metabolic syndrome · 2026Review
- Herpes Zoster Reactivation Following COVID-19 and the Risk of Renal, Infectious, and Autoimmune Complications: A Global Propensity-Matched Cohort Study.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Weight loss in adult male Wistar rats by Roux-en-Y gastric bypass is primarily explained by caloric intake reduction and presurgery body weight.American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology · 2024Article
- The evolutionary basis of elevated testosterone in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: an overview of systematic reviews of the evidence.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2024Review
- Article
- The causes of death in patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis following liver transplantation stratified using pre-liver transplant BMI.Hepatology international · 2023Article
- Does the "Obesity Paradox" Have an Expiration Date? A Retrospective Cohort Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Prevalence and predictors of tuberculosis infection among people living with HIV in a high tuberculosis burden context.BMJ open respiratory research · 2023Article
- Respiratory complications of obesity: from early changes to respiratory failure.Breathe (Sheffield, England) · 2023Review
- Effects of underweight and overweight on mortality in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Impact of Obesity on Early In-Hospital Outcomes after Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Surgery in Acute Coronary Syndrome: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Severity of underweight affects the development of nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease; a nationwide longitudinal study.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- The evolving obesity challenge: targeting the vagus nerve and the inflammatory reflex in the response.Pharmacology & therapeutics · 2021Review
- Artificial neural network to predict the effect of obesity on the risk of tuberculosis infection.Journal of public health research · 2021Article
- Gestational bisphenol A exposure induces fatty liver development in male offspring mice through the inhibition of HNF1b and upregulation of PPARγ.Cell biology and toxicology · 2021Article
- Dysregulated Inflammation During Obesity: Driving Disease Severity in Influenza Virus and SARS-CoV-2 Infections.Frontiers in immunology · 2021Review
- Impact of obesity on outcome of severe bacterial infections.PloS one · 2021Observational
- Obesity and Prevalence of Latent Tuberculosis: A Population-Based Survey.Infectious diseases · 2021Article
- Individuals with obesity and COVID-19: A global perspective on the epidemiology and biological relationships.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
18 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Obesity and the accompanying metabolic syndrome are strongly associated with heightened morbidity and mortality in older adults. In our review of more than 20 epidemiologic studies of major infectious diseases, including leaders such as tuberculosis, community-acquired pneumonia, and sepsis, obesity was associated with better outcomes. A cause-and-effect relationship between over-nutrition and survival with infection is suggested by results of two preliminary studies of infections in mice, where high fat feeding for 8-10 weeks provided much better outcomes. The better outcomes of infections with obesity are reminiscent of many recent studies of "sterile" non-infectious medical and surgical conditions where outcomes for obese patients are better than for their thinner counterparts --- and given the tag "obesity paradox". Turning to the history of medicine and biological evolution, we hypothesize that the metabolic syndrome has very ancient origins and is part of a lifelong metabolic program. While part of that program (the metabolic syndrome) promotes morbidity and mortality with aging, it helps infants and children as well as adults in their fight against infections and recovery from injuries, key roles in the hundreds of centuries before the public health advances of the 20th century. We conclude with speculation on how understanding the biological elements that protect obese patients with infections or injuries might be applied advantageously to thin patients with the same medical challenges.
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