Obesity and Biomarkers

Cardiovascular diseases

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in all areas of the world.  Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that encompass the heart or blood vessels systems. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack), stroke, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, abnormal heart rhythms, congenital heart disease, etc.

The original mechanism of the diseases varies significantly. Some diseases involve atherosclerosis such as coronary artery disease, stroke, and peripheral artery disease that may have arisen due to high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes mellitus, lack of exercise, obesity, high blood cholesterol, etc. 13% of CVD deaths are due to high blood pressure. 90% of CVD is estimated to be preventable.

Obesity

Obesity is a complex a disease that involves the deposition of an excessive amount of body fat in adipose tissues and other tissue spaces and cells. It increases the risk of other diseases and health problems in a person which includes heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, and certain cancers.

Dietary changes increased physical activity, and behavior changes can play a major role in overcoming the problem.  Also, there are genetic, behavioral, metabolic and hormonal influences on body weight, obesity occurs when you take in more calories than you burn during your daily activities. Your body stores these excess calories as fat.

Risk factors

Obesity usually results from a combination of causes and contributing factors: including Family inheritance and influences, Lifestyle choices, Certain diseases and medications (such as Prader-Willi syndrome, Cushing syndrome and other conditions and some medications can lead to weight gain), Social and economic issues, Age (can occur at any age), Other factors (such as Lack of sleep, Stress, and Microbiome (your gut bacteria).

People with obesity are more likely to develop several potentially serious health problems, including Heart disease and strokes, Type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, Digestive problems, Sleep apnea, etc.

The Role of Biomarkers

The early diagnosis of the disease can be done by using ‘Automated CT Scan biomarkers’ that can predict cardiovascular events better than current practices used for detection.

Artificial intelligence, when used to analyze CT scans, can produce a more accurate risk assessment for major cardiovascular events than current, standard methods such as the Framingham risk score (FRS) and body-mass index (BMI) as demonstrated by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Wisconsin

It was also observed by the researchers that BMI is a poor predictor of cardiovascular events, and all five automated CT-based measures clearly outperformed BMI for adverse event prediction.

The study compared the capability of automated CT-based body composition biomarkers derived from image-processing algorithms to forecast major cardiovascular events.

"We found that automated measures provided more accurate risk assessments than established clinical biomarkers," said Ronald M. Summers, M.D., Ph.D., of the NIH Clinical Centre and senior author of the study.

"This demonstrates the potential of an approach that uses AI to tap into the biometric data embedded in all such scans performed for a wide range of other indications and derive information that can help people better understand their overall health and risks of serious adverse events."

According to a recent study, five genes can be used as biomarkers and treatment targets for obesity, according to a study performed by a group of researchers from Saudi Arabia set out to figure out the role of SSGs (salt sensitivity genes) in the development of obesity.

The five genes are ENPEP, WNK1, CYP3A5, SLC24A3, and CTSA – that highly co-expressed with obesity-related genes and, due to this reason they can be used as potential biomarkers or treatment targets for obesity.

Hence, Biomarkers provide better disease diagnosis methods than standard diagnosis methods utilized and new biomarkers are discovered, developed and tested throughout for better disease diagnosis.