The Promise of Precision Medicine for Obesity: It Should be Simple

"I want ordering an obesity phenotype to be as simple for a clinician as ordering a lipid panel—it's one check on the list."

Andres Acosta, MD, PhD, director of the Mayo Clinic's Precision Medicine for Obesity lab, sees a future where busy primary care clinicians will request a patient's obesity phenotype and receive the information needed to target treatment for this metabolic disease just as they do now for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and other chronic conditions.

In this conversation with Patient Care®, Acosta discusses plans at Phenomix Sciences, a new Mayo Clinic company supported in part by the American Medical Association's innovation arm Health2047, to launch a first of its kind obesity phenotype test and how it will impact treatment for obesity.

For more conversations with Dr Acosta:

Andres Acosta, MD, Discusses the Challenge of Heterogeneity in Response to Obesity Treatment
Obesity Phenotypes Explain What Drives the Disease and How to Target Intervention: Expert Interview
How to Build an Obesity Phenotype Step-by-Step, with Andres Acosta, MD, PhD

Obesity Phenotype-targeted Treatment Choice Nearly Doubled Weight Loss in Clinical Trials: Investigator Interview

Andres Acosta, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, specializing in bariatric surgery, upper endoscopy, nutrition, and obesity. He is also an assistant professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Acosta's primary research focus is on the mechanisms and regulation of appetite, satiation, and satiety, including the role of gastric function, gastrointestinal hormones, taste preferences, bile acids, and enterohepatic regulation and gut energy utilization. Additionally, Dr. Acosta studies the effect of genetics, pharmacology and endoscopic devices on food intake regulation.

Twitter @dr_aac