Katharina Timper investigates the neurobiological mechanisms underlying overweight and obesity. As an endocrinologist and Professor of Clinical Nutritional Medicine, she is committed to advancing a holistic understanding and treatment of this widespread disease. In a recent episode of NewIn, she also discusses her efforts to counteract the stigma experienced by those affected.
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Over recent decades, obesity has reached epidemic proportions. Today, around one billion people worldwide are affected by this metabolic disease. "Obesity is by no means a cosmetic issue," says Katharina Timper. "It is a chronic disease driven by a multitude of factors." These include genetic and epigenetic causes, as well as environmental and psychosocial influences. In most cases, dysregulation at the level of the brain plays a key role. Professor Timper has spent more than a decade studying this complex condition and its impact on those affected.
For just as long, she has been advocating against the exclusion and stigmatization of people living with obesity. "Many people mistakenly believe that our eating behavior is mainly controlled by our own willpower," says Timper. This has led to the widespread misconception that obesity is a self-inflicted condition. The researcher firmly rejects this view: "Highly complex biological changes in the brain lead to a dysregulation of hunger and satiety, which in turn leads to overeating. This has nothing to do with a lack of willpower and certainly nothing to do with guilt."
Understanding the biological mechanisms
Since 2025, Katharina Timper has served as Professor at TUM and as Medical Director of Clinical Nutritional Medicine at the TUM University Hospital . Her research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the biological processes of obesity and eating disorders at the level of the brain. There, certain groups of nerve cells control hunger, satiety, and the reward system. These finely tuned regulatory circuits are fundamentally disturbed in people who are overweight or obese. "Obesity is a disease that originates in the brain and that needs to be addressed biologically in order to help those affected," she explains.
Treatment and care, the physician emphasizes, must always be holistic and multimodal - accompanied by nutritional counseling and a physical training program. Today, both medication and surgical interventions allow an effective treatment of obesity as well as the prevention or resolution of associated secondary conditions. "Treatment leads to biological changes in the brain," Timper explains, "so that patients feel less hungry, more sated and choose a more balanced diet."
At the TUM Campus at the Olympic Park, Katharina Timper is establishing a specialized outpatient clinic for patients with obesity, overweight and eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. To this end, she works in close collaboration with other departments, including cardiology, sports medicine, gastroenterology, visceral surgery, gynecology, psychosomatic medicine and psychiatry.
Modulating metabolism through the nose
Together with her teams at TUM and Helmholtz Munich, the scientist is investigating how neurons in the brain function and how they influence systemic metabolism in conjunction with nutrition. One focus of the research is on volatile compounds - such as odorant molecules that are inhaled through the nose and might have the ability to impact hunger and satiety in the brain. The aim is to identify volatile molecules with metabolism-modulating effects and to develop them further in a targeted way.
At the same time, Professor Timper aims to unravel if volatile molecules exhaled by humans can be used for diagnostic purposes. In the future, this could allow metabolic information to be gathered non-invasively and in real time - and to apply it in personalized treatment approaches. This might also pave the way for the development of new therapeutic approaches.
"I value the excellent research conditions, the fantastic opportunities for collaboration, and the highly collegial atmosphere here in Munich," says the professor. In joint effort with her colleagues she aims to develop Munich into one of Europe's leading research and treatment centers for metabolic diseases.
Katharina Timper is convinced that the knowledge gained from research - along with the possibilities offered by new treatment approaches - can help to push back effectively against the widespread social devaluation of those affected. "If we understand the underlying mechanisms of obesity and eating disorders, then there will be no place for stigmatization."
More about Katharina Timper
Professor Katharina Timper studied human medicine at the University of Freiburg. She is a board-certified specialist in endocrinology, diabetology and metabolism as well as in internal medicine. Before her appointment at TUM, she worked at the University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland, where she headed the university's interdisciplinary obesity center, clinical nutrition unit and outpatient clinic for eating disorders. In May 2025, she was appointed Professor of Clinical Nutritional Medicine and Medical Director of Clinical Nutritional Medicine at the TUM University Hospital . Since October 2025, she has also headed the newly founded Institute for Translational Metabolism Research at Helmholtz Munich. She is also spokesperson for the Else Kröner Fresenius Center for Nutritional Medicine (EKFZ) at TUM, which investigates new approaches to the prevention and treatment of nutrition-related diseases.
