The Obesity Society (TOS) just wrapped up their annual ObesityWeek conference for 2025. This year's conference ran from November 4 through November 7, in Atlanta, Georgia. The four-day event was packed with research presentations, networking events, and educational opportunities. We looked through the hundreds of submitted abstracts and are recapping some of the poster and oral abstracts submitted to ObesityWeek 2025.

The following is a curated list of abstracts and descriptions that were presented during ObesityWeek 2025. TOS divided the abstracts into groups and we’ve selected a couple abstracts from each group for today’s recap. The groups are Metabolism and Integrated Physiology, Neuroscience, Interventional and Clinical Studies, Population Health, and Policy and Public Health. For a complete look at all the abstracts presented, visit the official ObesityWeek 2025 abstracts archive. 

Metabolism and Integrated Physiology ObesityWeek Abstracts

Obesity-NAFLD Induces Inflammatory CKD Condition, Partially Alleviated by Short-Term Metformin

  • Description: This study investigates the impact of obesity-associated non-alcoholic fatty liver disease on the kidney and evaluates the potential protective effects of metformin.
  • Conclusion: Researchers found that Ob-NAFLD induces tubular injury, oxidative stress, inflammation, and fibrosis in rat kidneys, all markers of chronic kidney disease condition. While short-term metformin treatment demonstrated anti-oxidative anti-inflammatory effects during Ob-NAFLD, it had a limited impact on mitigating structural damage associated with kidney injury, warranting additional therapeutic strategies such as long-term metformin treatment or testing other therapeutics such as ROS scavenger and anti-inflammatory drugs to effectively address these pathologies.

Anti-obesity Roles of Natural Products, Capsicin and Evodiamine

  • Description: Researchers verified the known beneficial roles of capsaicin and evodiamine compounds isolated from fruits of Chilli peppers (Capsicum family) and Evodia fructus, respectively, in white and brown adipogenesis, and mitochondrial homeostasis.
  • Conclusion: Capsaicin and evodiamine do not show anti-white adipogenic and browning of brown adipocyte effect in vitro.
Neuroscience

Guideline of Nutrients and Probiotics in Patients with Obesity and Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis

  • Description: This study presented a meta-analysis of the primary considerations and outcomes of clinical studies on the relationship between the gut microbiota-brain axis in patients with obesity and schizophrenia, as well as highlighting the effects of nutrients, prebiotics, and probiotics for the improvement of symptoms of schizophrenia.
  • Conclusion: The potential role of gut microbiota in schizophrenia is related to changes in brain structure and function. The development of a nutritional program focused on increasing the dietary content of prebiotics and probiotics can effectively improve the cardiometabolic profile in SZ spectrum disorders.

The Insular Cortex Promotes Energy Balance via Serotonin Neurons

  • Description: Serotonin (5-HT) targeted therapies show great promise; however, many that have been FDA approved for weight-loss have been withdrawn due to the risks outweighing the potential benefits. Therefore, more work needs to be completed to understand the most effective way to target 5-HT for the safe treatment of obesity. [The researcher’s] work indicates that an upstream projection to 5-HT neurons, the agranular insular cortex (AIC) is a critical mediator of body weight gain.
  • Conclusion: The AICàDRN circuit plays an important role in regulating energy balance and more specifically body weight gain, response to fasting, and BAT thermogenesis.
Interventional and Clinical Studies

Obesity in Menopause: New Horizons and Challenges in Pharmacologic and Surgical Treatment

  • Description: The emergence of new anti-obesity agents raises the question of whether menopausal individuals require specific therapeutic considerations. This narrative review explores recent evidence and gaps in pharmacologic and surgical treatment of obesity during menopause.
  • Conclusion: Preliminary findings support the use of GLP-1 RAs and bariatric surgery, with possible added benefits such as preservation of bone health. However, robust studies are urgently needed to clarify efficacy, safety, and the role of MHT in this context, enabling more individualized and evidence-based care for menopausal individuals with obesity.

Semaglutide Effect on Physical Functioning in Adults with Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis

  • Description: This secondary analysis evaluated the effect of semaglutide 2.4 mg vs placebo on physical functioning (PF), measured by WOMAC PF and SF-36v2 Health Survey acute version 2 (SF-36v2) PF scores, and on 6-minute walk distance (6MWD).
  • Conclusion: In [the STEP 9 trial] (NCT05064735), self-reported improvement in pain scores and PF, as indicated by improved scores in WOMAC PF, SF-36v2 PF, and 6MWD, were associated with body weight reduction in both the semaglutide 2.4 mg and placebo groups. More substantial improvements were seen with semaglutide 2.4 mg, likely due to greater body weight reduction in this treatment group.
Population Health

Cardiometabolic Risks Among Children with Severe Obesity Using Extended Growth Curves

  • Description: In 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released the first ever Clinical Practice Guideline for the assessment and treatment of pediatric obesity, which included recommendations for screening for comorbidities in children with obesity. However, the recommendations were limited by the lack of data on children with severe obesity, given that no standard definition of severe obesity was available during much of the review period. At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released extended growth charts for children with obesity, allowing for more accurate growth monitoring for children with severe obesity. Our objective was to examine how the extended growth charts were associated with cardiometabolic (CV) risk factors among children with obesity.
  • Conclusion: Using the CDC extended z-score growth charts provides additional information on increased CV risk factors, compared to using standard severe obesity definitions. This provides valuable information for the implementation of the clinical practice guidelines. Specifically, findings can inform pediatric providers when making determinations about assessment and referral to higher-level obesity treatment.

Masked Behind the Marshmallow Test: A Nuanced Look at Delay of Gratification and Weight

  • Description: The Marshmallow test, which assesses how well children can delay gratification for larger rewards, has been widely used to predict a range of later life outcomes, including weight trajectory. As most studies assessing children’s self-control ability with their performance on the task dichotomized as passing or failing, or in a linear function as duration of time waited, nuances in group differences that could shed deeper insights into the role of self-control in later weight outcomes may be overlooked.
  • Conclusion: Results suggest that the most common operalizations of self-control from the Marshmallow test in current literature provides limited implications to the instrument’s predictive power to children’s future weight outcome. Results from the current study can be considered from a developmental viewpoint to understand the implications.
Policy and Public Health

Compliance With Early Life Fruit Juice Recommendations Decreases Risk of Obesity at Age 5

  • Description: [The researchers’] objective was to examine the association between compliance with early life fruit juice recommendations and obesity at age 5 among children enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
  • Conclusion: [The] findings suggest that compliance with recommended guidelines for infant and toddler fruit juice consumption (delay introduction to ≥12 months and limit daily consumption to 4 ounces once introduced) lowers the risk of later obesity.

PRx & CKD: A Produce Prescription Trial in Individuals with Kidney Disease and Food Insecurity

  • Description: Produce prescription programs have shown improved outcomes for people with other chronic conditions, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but little research has examined the efficacy or feasibility of these interventions in populations with kidney disease.
  • Conclusion: The findings [presented] related to the intervention’s impact on diet-related outcomes will serve as critical early data on the efficacy of produce prescriptions within CKD populations and will help in the design of future patient-centered interventions to address social needs.

Check back next fall, as ObesityWeek 2026 kicks off in Washington D.C., November 14 through November 17.

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