This DNA test can predict if a 5-year-old will be obese as an adult
A new genetic test, based on data from more than five million people, can identify people at risk of severe obesity. The test can be performed on children before their genetic risk starts to shape their weight, which may support early prevention.
- Date:
- July 25, 2025
- Source:
- University of Copenhagen - The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences
- Summary:
- What if we could predict obesity before it ever takes hold? A global team has created a genetic test that forecasts a child’s risk of adult obesity before age five—years before other factors kick in. By analyzing data from over five million people, their polygenic risk score doubles the predictive power of previous tools. While genetics isn’t destiny, those with higher genetic risk respond better to weight loss interventions but may regain weight quickly. The tool isn’t perfect, it performs far better in people of European ancestry, but it’s a game-changer in early prevention.
- Share:
What if we could prevent people from developing obesity? The World Obesity Federation expects more than half the global population to develop overweight or obesity by 2035. However, treatment strategies such as lifestyle change, surgery and medications are not universally available or effective.
By drawing on genetic data from over five million people, an international team of researchers has created a genetic test called a polygenic risk score (PGS) that predicts adulthood obesity already in early childhood. This finding could help to identify children and adolescents at higher genetic risk of developing obesity, who could benefit from targeted preventative strategies, such as lifestyle interventions, at a younger age.
"What makes the score so powerful is its ability to predict, before the age of five, whether a child is likely to develop obesity in adulthood, well before other risk factors start to shape their weight later in childhood. Intervening at this point can have a huge impact," says Assistant Professor Roelof Smit from the NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR) at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the research published in Nature Medicine.
The study arises from the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) Consortium, an international collaboration of human genetics researchers dedicated to studying the genetic architecture of anthropometric traits such as human height and body mass index. The research involved a collaboration with the consumer genetics and research company 23andMe, inc., and the contributions of more than 600 scientists from 500 institutions, globally.
Twice as effective at predicting obesity as the next best test
The subtle variations in our genomes can greatly impact our health. Thousands of genetic variants have been identified that increase our risk of obesity, for example, variants that act in the brain and influence our appetite. A PGS is like a calculator that combines the effects of the different risk variants that a person carries and provides an overall score.
To create their PGS, the scientists drew on the genetic data of more than five million people - the largest and most diverse genetic dataset ever. They then tested their new PGS for obesity on datasets of the physical and genetic characteristics of more than 500,000 people. They found that their new PGS was twice as effective as the previous best test at predicting a person's risk of developing obesity.
"This new polygenic score is a dramatic improvement in predictive power and a leap forward in the genetic prediction of obesity risk, which brings us much closer to clinically useful genetic testing," says Professor Ruth Loos from CBMR at the University of Copenhagen.
Genetics is not destiny
The scientists also investigated the relationship between a person's genetic risk of obesity and the impact of lifestyle weight loss interventions, such as diet and exercise. They discovered that people with a higher genetic risk of obesity were more responsive to interventions but also regained weight more quickly when the interventions ended.
However, the new PGS has its limitations. Despite drawing on the genomes of a broader, more globally representative population, it was far better at predicting obesity in people with European-like ancestry than in people with African ancestry.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Copenhagen - The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Roelof A. J. Smit, Kaitlin H. Wade, Qin Hui, Joshua D. Arias, Xianyong Yin, Malene R. Christiansen, Loic Yengo, Michael H. Preuss, Mariam Nakabuye, Ghislain Rocheleau, Sarah E. Graham, Victoria L. Buchanan, Geetha Chittoor, Marielisa Graff, Marta Guindo-Martínez, Yingchang Lu, Eirini Marouli, Saori Sakaue, Cassandra N. Spracklen, Sailaja Vedantam, Emma P. Wilson, Shyh-Huei Chen, Teresa Ferreira, Yingjie Ji, Tugce Karaderi, Kreete Lüll, Moara Machado, Deborah E. Malden, Carolina Medina-Gomez, Amy Moore, Sina Rüeger, Masato Akiyama, Matthew A. Allison, Marcus Alvarez, Mette K. Andersen, Vivek Appadurai, Liubov Arbeeva, Eric Bartell, Seema Bhaskar, Lawrence F. Bielak, Joshua C. Bis, Sailalitha Bollepalli, Jette Bork-Jensen, Jonathan P. Bradfield, Yuki Bradford, Caroline Brandl, Peter S. Braund, Jennifer A. Brody, Ulrich Broeckel, Kristoffer S. Burgdorf, Brian E. Cade, Qiuyin Cai, Silvia Camarda, Archie Campbell, Marisa Cañadas-Garre, Jin-Fang Chai, Alessandra Chesi, Seung Hoan Choi, Paraskevi Christofidou, Christian Couture, Gabriel Cuellar-Partida, Rebecca Danning, Frauke Degenhardt, Graciela E. Delgado, Alessandro Delitala, Ayşe Demirkan, Xuan Deng, Alexander Dietl, Maria Dimitriou, Latchezar Dimitrov, Rajkumar Dorajoo, Fabian Eichelmann, Anders U. Eliasen, Jorgen E. Engmann, Michael R. Erdos, Zammy Fairhurst-Hunter, Aliki-Eleni Farmaki, Jessica D. Faul, Juan-Carlos Fernandez-Lopez, Lukas Forer, Mirjam Frank, Sandra Freitag-Wolf, Lars G. Fritsche, Christian Fuchsberger, Tessel E. Galesloot, Yan Gao, Frank Geller, Olga Giannakopoulou, Franco Giulianini, Anette P. Gjesing, Anuj Goel, Scott D. Gordon, Mathias Gorski, Jakob Grove, Xiuqing Guo, Stefan Gustafsson, Jeffrey Haessler, Thomas F. Hansen, Aki S. Havulinna, Simon J. Haworth, Nancy Heard-Costa, Daiane Hemerich, Heather M. Highland, George Hindy, Yuk-Lam Ho, Edith Hofer, Elizabeth Holliday, Katrin Horn, Whitney E. Hornsby, Jouke-Jan Hottenga, Hongyan Huang, Jie Huang, Alicia Huerta-Chagoya, Shaofeng Huo, Mi Yeong Hwang, Chii-Min Hwu, Hiroyuki Iha, Daisuke D. Ikeda, Masato Isono, Anne U. Jackson, Iris E. Jansen, Yunxuan Jiang, Ingegerd Johansson, Anna Jonsson, Torben Jørgensen, Ioanna P. Kalafati, Masahiro Kanai, Stavroula Kanoni, Line L. Kårhus, Anuradhani Kasturiratne, Tomohiro Katsuya, Takahisa Kawaguchi, Rachel L. Kember, Katherine A. Kentistou, Daeeun Kim, Han-Na Kim, Young Jin Kim, Marcus E. Kleber, Maria J. Knol, Azra Kurbasic, Marie Lauzon, Phuong Le, Rodney Lea, Jong-Young Lee, Wen-Jane Lee, Hampton L. Leonard, Hengtong Li, Shengchao A. Li, Xiaohui Li, Xiaoyin Li, Jingjing Liang, Honghuang Lin, Kuang Lin, Jun Liu, Xueping Liu, Ken Sin Lo, Jirong Long, Laura Lores-Motta, Jian’an Luan, Valeriya Lyssenko, Leo-Pekka Lyytikäinen, Anubha Mahajan, Md Zubbair Malik, Vasiliki Mamakou, Massimo Mangino, Ani Manichaikul, Jonathan Marten, Manuel Mattheisen, Aaron F. McDaid, Quanshun Mei, Heike Meiselbach, Tori L. Melendez, Yuri Milaneschi, Jason E. Miller, Iona Y. Millwood, Pashupati P. Mishra, Ruth E. Mitchell, Line T. Møllehave, Nina Mononen, Sören Mucha, Matthias Munz, Juha Mykkänen, Masahiro Nakatochi, Giuseppe Giovanni Nardone, Christopher P. Nelson, Maria Nethander, Chu Won Nho, Aneta A. Nielsen, Ilja M. Nolte, Suraj S. Nongmaithem, Raymond Noordam, Ioanna Ntalla, Teresa Nutile, Anita Pandit, Marc Pauper, Eva R. B. Petersen, Liselotte V. Petersen, Francesco Piluso, Ozren Polašek, Alaitz Poveda, Saiju Pyarajan, Laura M. Raffield, Hiromi Rakugi, Julia Ramirez, Asif Rasheed, Dennis Raven, Nigel W. Rayner, Carlos Riveros, Rebecca Rohde, Daniela Ruggiero, Sanni E. Ruotsalainen, Kathleen A. Ryan, Maria Sabater-Lleal, Aurora Santin, Richa Saxena, Markus Scholz, Botong Shen, Jingchunzi Shi, Jae Hun Shin, Carlo Sidore, Julia Sidorenko, Xueling Sim, Roderick C. Slieker, Albert V. Smith, Jennifer A. Smith, Laura J. Smyth, Lorraine Southam, Valgerdur Steinthorsdottir, Liang Sun, Fumihiko Takeuchi, Kent D. Taylor, Bamidele O. Tayo, Catherine Tcheandjieu, Natalie Terzikhan, Paola Tesolin, Alexander Teumer, Elizabeth Theusch, Deborah J. Thompson, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Paul R. H. J. Timmers, Stella Trompet, Constance Turman, Simona Vaccargiu, Sander W. van der Laan, Peter J. van der Most, Jan B. van Klinken, Jessica van Setten, Shefali S. Verma, Niek Verweij, Yogasudha Veturi, Carol A. Wang, Chaolong Wang, Jun-Sing Wang, Lihua Wang, Ya Xing Wang, Zhe Wang, Helen R. Warren, Wen Bin Wei, Wanqing Wen, William A. Wheeler, Ananda R. Wickremasinghe, Matthias Wielscher, Bendik S. Winsvold, Andrew Wong, Matthias Wuttke, Rui Xia, Ken Yamamoto, Jingyun Yang, Jie Yao, Hannah Young, Noha A. Yousri, Lei Yu, Lingyao Zeng, Weihua Zhang, Xinyuan Zhang, Jing-Hua Zhao, Wei Zhao, Wei Zhou, Martina E. Zimmermann, Magdalena Zoledziewska, Leen M. ‘t Hart, Linda S. Adair, Hieab H. H. Adams, Carlos A. Aguilar-Salinas, Fahd Al-Mulla, Donna K. Arnett, Folkert W. Asselbergs, Bjørn Olav Åsvold, John Attia, Bernhard Banas, Stefania Bandinelli, Lawrence J. Beilin, David A. Bennett, Tobias Bergler, Dwaipayan Bharadwaj, Ginevra Biino, Eric Boerwinkle, Carsten A. Böger, Judith B. Borja, Claude Bouchard, Donald W. Bowden, Ivan Brandslund, Ben Brumpton, Julie E. Buring, Mark J. Caulfield, John C. Chambers, Giriraj R. Chandak, Stephen J. Chanock, Nish Chaturvedi, Yii-Der Ida Chen, Zhengming Chen, Ching-Yu Cheng, Yoon Shin Cho, Kaare Christensen, Ingrid E. Christophersen, Marina Ciullo, John W. Cole, Francis S. Collins, Maria Pina Concas, Richard S. Cooper, Miguel Cruz, Francesco Cucca, Michael J. Cutler, Scott M. Damrauer, Thomas M. Dantoft, Gert J. de Borst, Eco J. C. de Geus, Lisette C. P. G. M. de Groot, Philip L. De Jager, Dominique P. V. de Kleijn, H. Janaka de Silva, George V. Dedoussis, Anneke I. den Hollander, Shufa Du, Douglas F. Easton, Kai-Uwe Eckardt, Petra J. M. Elders, A. Heather Eliassen, Patrick T. Ellinor, Sölve Elmståhl, Jeanette Erdmann, Michele K. Evans, Diane Fatkin, Bjarke Feenstra, Mary F. Feitosa, Luigi Ferrucci, Jose C. Florez, Ian Ford, Myriam Fornage, Andre Franke, Paul W. Franks, Barry I. Freedman, Christian Gieger, Giorgia Girotto, Yvonne M. Golightly, Clicerio Gonzalez-Villalpando, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Harald Grallert, Struan F. A. Grant, Niels Grarup, Lyn Griffiths, Vilmundur Gudnason, Christopher Haiman, Hakon Hakonarson, Torben Hansen, Catharina A. Hartman, Andrew T. Hattersley, Caroline Hayward, Iris M. Heid, Chew-Kiat Heng, Christian Hengstenberg, Karl-Heinz Herzig, Alex W. Hewitt, Haretsugu Hishigaki, David M. Hougaard, Carel B. Hoyng, Paul L. Huang, Wei Huang, Wen-Yi Huang, Jennifer E. Huffman, Steven C. Hunt, Nina Hutri, Kristian Hveem, Elina Hyppönen, William G. Iacono, Sahoko Ichihara, M. Arfan Ikram, Carmen R. Isasi, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Zi-Bing Jin, Karl-Heinz Jöckel, Jost B. Jonas, Peter K. Joshi, Pekka Jousilahti, J. Wouter Jukema, Mika Kähönen, Yoichiro Kamatani, Kui Dong Kang, Jaakko Kaprio, Sharon L. R. Kardia, Fredrik Karpe, Norihiro Kato, Maryam Kavousi, Frank Kee, Thorsten Kessler, Amit V. Khera, Chiea Chuen Khor, Lambertus A. L. M. Kiemeney, Bong-Jo Kim, Eung Kweon Kim, Hyung-Lae Kim, Paulus Kirchhof, Mika Kivimaki, Woon-Puay Koh, Heikki A. Koistinen, Alexander Kokkinos, Jaspal S. Kooner, Charles Kooperberg, Peter Kovacs, Adriaan Kraaijeveld, Peter Kraft, Ronald M. Krauss, Meena Kumari, Zoltan Kutalik, Markku Laakso, Leslie A. Lange, Claudia Langenberg, Lenore J. Launer, Hyejin Lee, Nanette R. Lee, Terho Lehtimäki, Rozenn N. Lemaitre, Huaixing Li, Liming Li, Wolfgang Lieb, Xu Lin, Lars Lind, Allan Linneberg, Ching-Ti Liu, Jianjun Liu, Markus Loeffler, Barry London, Fan Lu, Steven A. Lubitz, David A. Mackey, Patrik K. E. Magnusson, JoAnn E. Manson, Gregory M. Marcus, Pedro Marques Vidal, Nicholas G. Martin, Winfried März, Fumihiko Matsuda, Mark I. McCarthy, Robert W. McGarrah, Matt McGue, Amy Jayne McKnight, Sarah E. Medland, Dan Mellström, Andres Metspalu, Braxton D. Mitchell, Paul Mitchell, Dennis O. Mook-Kanamori, Trevor A. Mori, Andrew D. Morris, Lorelei A. Mucci, Patricia B. Munroe, Mike A. Nalls, Saman Nazarian, Amanda E. Nelson, Matt J. Neville, Christopher Newton-Cheh, Christopher S. Nielsen, Harri Niinikoski, Kjell Nikus, Markus M. Nöthen, Adesola Ogunniyi, Claes Ohlsson, Albertine J. Oldehinkel, Lorena Orozco, Katja Pahkala, Päivi Pajukanta, Colin N. A. Palmer, Esteban J. Parra, Cristian Pattaro, Oluf Pedersen, Craig E. Pennell, Brenda W. J. H. Penninx, Louis Perusse, Annette Peters, Patricia A. Peyser, David J. Porteous, Danielle Posthuma, Chris Power, Peter P. Pramstaller, Michael A. Province, Bruce M. Psaty, Qibin Qi, Jia Qu, Daniel J. Rader, Olli T. Raitakari, Loukianos S. Rallidis, Dabeeru C. Rao, Susan Redline, Dermot F. Reilly, Alexander P. Reiner, Sang Youl Rhee, Paul M. Ridker, Michiel Rienstra, Samuli Ripatti, Marylyn D. Ritchie, Fernando Rivadeneira, Dan M. Roden, Frits R. Rosendaal, Jerome I. Rotter, Igor Rudan, Femke Rutters, Seungho Ryu, Charumathi Sabanayagam, Babatunde Salako, Danish Saleheen, Veikko Salomaa, Nilesh J. Samani, Dharambir K. Sanghera, Naveed Sattar, Börge Schmidt, Helena Schmidt, Reinhold Schmidt, Matthias B. Schulze, Heribert Schunkert, Laura J. Scott, Rodney J. Scott, Peter Sever, Wayne H. H. Sheu, M. Benjamin Shoemaker, Xiao-Ou Shu, Eleanor M. Simonsick, Mario Sims, Andrew B. Singleton, Moritz F. Sinner, J. Gustav Smith, Harold Snieder, Tim D. Spector, Beatrice Spedicati, Meir J. Stampfer, Klaus J. Stark, David P. Strachan, Yasuharu Tabara, E. Shyong Tai, Hua Tang, Jean-Claude Tardif, Thangavel A. Thanaraj, Anke Tönjes, Tiinamaija Tuomi, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Maria-Teresa Tusié-Luna, Rob M. van Dam, Pim van der Harst, Nathalie Van der Velde, Cornelia M. van Duijn, Natasja M. van Schoor, Veronique Vitart, Marie-Claude Vohl, Uwe Völker, Peter Vollenweider, Henry Völzke, Scott Vrieze, Niels H. Wacher-Rodarte, Mark Walker, Gurpreet S. Wander, Nicholas J. Wareham, Richard M. Watanabe, Hugh Watkins, David R. Weir, Thomas M. Werge, Elisabeth Widen, Gonneke Willemsen, Walter C. Willett, James F. Wilson, Peter W. F. Wilson, Tien Y. Wong, Jeong-Taek Woo, Alan F. Wright, Huichun Xu, Chittaranjan S. Yajnik, Jian Yang, Mitsuhiro Yokota, Jian-Min Yuan, Eleftheria Zeggini, Babette S. Zemel, Wei Zheng, Xiaofeng Zhu, M. Carola Zillikens, Alan B. Zonderman, John-Anker Zwart, Goncalo R. Abecasis, Themistocles L. Assimes, Adam Auton, Michael Boehnke, Daniel I. Chasman, Tõnu Esko, Kari Stefansson, Guillaume Lettre, Cecilia M. Lindgren, Maggie C. Y. Ng, Christopher J. O’Donnell, Unnur Thorsteinsdottir, Peter M. Visscher, Robin G. Walters, Thomas W. Winkler, Andrew R. Wood, Panos Deloukas, Timothy M. Frayling, Anne E. Justice, Tuomas O. Kilpeläinen, Adam E. Locke, Karen L. Mohlke, Kari E. North, Yukinori Okada, Cristen J. Willer, Kristin L. Young, Segun Fatumo, Jeanne M. McCaffery, Nicholas J. Timpson, Joel N. Hirschhorn, Yan V. Sun, Sonja I. Berndt, Ruth J. F. Loos. Polygenic prediction of body mass index and obesity through the life course and across ancestries. Nature Medicine, 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-03827-z
Cite This Page: