April 30, 2026

OBSCORE – a tool to identify individuals at highest risk of obesity-related complications

Obesity is a major global health challenge, with 60-70 per cent of adults in the western countries living with overweight or obesity. If untreated, it can lead to several conditions ranging from type 2 diabetes and heart disease to other chronic illnesses. However, people living with overweight or obesity can have vastly different health trajectories. While some remain healthy for many years, others go on to develop serious health-related conditions.

Identifying those individuals at highest risk early is increasingly important and could help healthcare professionals choose the appropriate intervention and prioritise treatments to those that need them the most, particularly as new and promising treatment options for treating obesity – such as GLP-1 medicines, are becoming increasingly available.

To address this clinical challenge, researchers from Queen Mary University of London and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité have developed and validated an obesity risk model that can accurately identify individuals at highest risk of obesity-related complications early.

In a new study being published on Nature Medicine on Thursday 30^th April,  the researchers show how they analysed UK Biobank health data from 200,000 participants with overweight or obesity. Using interpretable machine-learning, they evaluated more than 2,000 general, lifestyle, clinical, blood tests, body measurements, molecular, and other indicators of health. To develop the model (OBSCORE), they analysed the data to identify 20 health indicators or routine blood tests that most effectively predicts future risk of developing 18 obesity-related diseases or complications, ensuring that the test would not only be accurate, but also simple to use in clinical settings. The researchers then validated the model in independent studies.

Amongst other things the results of this important new study could help the NHS to identify which patients can most benefit from weight loss drugs and could indicate that it is not just severely obese people who might benefit from these interventions.

Speakers included: 

Professor Claudia Langenberg, Director and Professor of Medicine and Population Health, Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI), Queen Mary University of London

Professor Nick Wareham, Co-Director Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge

Dr Kamil Demircan, MD/PhD Postdoctoral Researcher, Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI), Queen Mary University of London

Dr Julia Carrasco-Zanini, PhD, Lecturer in Multiomic Science at the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI), Queen Mary University of London

This Briefing was accompanied by an SMC Roundup of comments.