The Medical Definition and Diagnosis of Obesity: What is the Use of a B.M.I. to Determine if Someone Is Sick?

At the heart of the debate: The medical community has never provided a precise definition for obesity as a disease. A body mass index, or B.M.I., can be used to gauge whether or not a person has too much body fat. B.M.I., which is a weight divided by the square of height, was never meant to be used as a tool to determine if someone is healthy or sick. There isn’t an agreed on method to tell if someone has a heart disease based on a range of telltale signs and symptoms including high blood sugar levels.

Diagnosis by B.M.I. was always imprecise; in an era of remarkably effective weight loss drugs, it’s untenable. Consider that 40 percent of American adults are classified as having obesity with a B.M.I. of 30 or above. With new treatments that cost upward of $1,000 a month along with a shortage of supply, it’s not just a fight over terminology for how to define obese. Knowing who is sick will help determine who gets health care and who doesn’t. It is about ending the confusion that comes with an obese diagnosis.

Lasker Award for Medical Science: Obesity-drug pioneers win prestigious medical science award for medical science, Jan. 22, 1995

Owing to the shake-up these drugs are causing in health care, some think they might soon win science’s top prize — the Nobel. 95 LaskerPrizes have been awarded since 1945, and most of them have also received the top honor, a Nobel prize. “This raises the spectre that the Nobel committee will take [GLP-1 research] seriously,” Seeley says. Next month, the prizes will be announced.

The increased recognition of GLP-1 research was initially meant to treat diabetes. Randy Seeley, an obese specialist in Ann Arbor, says he has been working on this for 30 years. “Over the last several years, the situation has changed so much. We now have therapies that help people.

Other recipients of this year’s Lasker Awards include Zhijian ‘James’ Chen at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, who was honoured in the basic-research category for discovering how DNA triggers immune and inflammatory responses. In the public-service category, Salim Abdool Karim and Quarraisha Abdool Karim, both at the Centre for AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa, in Durban, were recognized for developing life-saving approaches to prevent and treat HIV infections.

Habener zeroed in on glucagon, a hormone that increases blood-sugar levels. After cloning the gene for glucagon, he discovered that the gene also encoded a related hormone — later named GLP-1 — that stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin1.

Source: Obesity-drug pioneers win prestigious Lasker Award for medical science

The Vin Future Prize, the Antics, and their Contributions to the Research of GLP-1-Based Drugs: Contributions of Drinfeldt, Drucker, and DiMarchi

Mojsov spoke out last year about the lack of recognition she got for her work. She received the Vin Future Prize since then. “I’m happy that I’m getting awards, but what makes me even happier is that people are actually reading my work,” she says.

The challenge will be to pick the most deserving recipients for each prize, as there are no more than three winners. Several other scientists involved in the research behind GLP-1-based drugs have been recognized by other awards, including Jens Juul Holst at the University of Copenhagen, Daniel Drucker at the University of Toronto in Canada, and Richard DiMarchi at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Seeley says there are 10,000 ants that move the ant hill and they are trying to pick three that made the most difference. To find a dozen names of people who have made important contributions to the field, you could look in the archives.