Replacing body mass index with relative fat mass to accurately estimate adiposity (2025)

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  • Obesity

Body mass index (BMI), as its name indicates, is a marker of total body mass and not a specific marker of adipose tissue mass. Here, we position relative fat mass (RFM) as an ideal alternative to BMI by highlighting the superior performance of RFM in assessing cardiometabolic risk.

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Acknowledgements

R.A.d.B and N.S. are supported by the Netherlands Heart Foundation (Nederlandse Hartstichting) through grants 2020B005 (DOUBLE DOSE) and 01-003-2022-0358 (CARMA), by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek), co-funded by ERA4Health through the CARDINNOV 2023 call, as part of the EnerLIGHT project (Grant Agreement N. 101095426 of the EU Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme) and by the European Research Council (ERC CoG 818715; SECRETE-HF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiovascular Research Institute, Thorax Center, Department of Cardiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands

    Navin Suthahar (नवीन सुधाकर)&Rudolf A. de Boer

  2. Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Richard N. Bergman

Authors

  1. Navin Suthahar (नवीन सुधाकर)

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  2. Richard N. Bergman

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  3. Rudolf A. de Boer

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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Navin Suthahar (नवीन सुधाकर) or Rudolf A. de Boer.

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Competing interests

Outside the current work, R.A.d.B. has had speaker engagements with and/or received fees from and/or served on an advisory board for Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk, Roche and Zoll. R.A.d.B. received travel support from Abbott and Novo Nordisk. The institution where R.A.d.B. is employed has received research grants and/or fees from Alnylam, AstraZeneca, Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk and Roche. R.N.B. was involved in the development of the relative fat mass (RFM) equation. R.A.d.B. declares no competing interests directly related to this manuscript. N.S. declares no competing interests.

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Replacing body mass index with relative fat mass to accurately estimate adiposity (1)

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Suthahar, N., Bergman, R.N. & de Boer, R.A. Replacing body mass index with relative fat mass to accurately estimate adiposity. Nat Rev Endocrinol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-025-01120-0

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Replacing body mass index with relative fat mass to accurately estimate adiposity (2025)

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