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The obesity epidemic: molecular and clinical considerations
Despite specific public health policies and individual treatment efforts to combat the obesity epidemic, >2 billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. Complex and interacting circumstances, such as socioeconomic status, environment and personal behaviours, as well as genotype–phenotype interactions, are implicated in obesity; all these factors affect food intake, nutrient turnover, thermogenesis, lipid oxidation and differential fat storage in different tissues. To mark World Obesity Day on 11 October 2017, the editors of Nature Reviews have curated a collection of articles that describe the latest efforts to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the condition against this complex backdrop, as well as advances in treatment.