In a correspondence letter to Nature Medicine, Professor Afshan Malik joins researchers across the EU to describe the current state of obesity in young people and how the PAS GRAS project aims to treat it.
Over 245 million children aged 5 - 14, 249 million adolescents and young adults aged 15 - 24, and 2.1 billion adults are overweight or obese. Substantial increase for all age groups is predicted by 2050. The causes are complicated, and involve genetics, environment, diet, lack of exercise, sleep issues and social factors like poverty.
For younger people, this not only harms their health now, but increases their chances of serious health issues like diabetes and heart disease later in life. Treatment will cost an increasingly larger portion of healthcare resources, with estimates reaching US $ 4.32 trillion by 2035.
Writing to Nature Medicine, Afshan Malik, Professor of Metabolic Disease, along with a range of collaborators from the PAS GRAS Consortium, describe how they hope to solve some of the obesity issues plaguing young people across Europe.
The rising rates of childhood overweight and obesity across Europe and the UK are deeply concerning. Overweight/obesity can disrupt metabolism and over time significantly increase the risk of over 18 serious diseases, including diabetes, cancer, and heart disease."
Afshan Malik, Professor of Metabolic Disease and one of the co-authors of the correspondence
Professor Malik continued: "Within the PAS GRAS consortium, our lab at KCL is investigating the underlying causes of this increased risk using large datasets. We're helping to develop simple, accessible tools to detect risk factors beyond just weight, and collaborating across disciplines to develop strategies to both prevent obesity in young people and reduce their long-term risk of chronic disease."
PAS GRAS, launched in 2023, is a project funded by the EU and UK that brings together scientists, doctors, and educators to better understand youth obesity and create effective solutions. The project collects and analyses data on lifestyle, mental health, family life and environment to see how these interact with biology and genetics.
The researchers are bringing together data from different groups of people - including big health databases like the UK Biobank and intervention studies that test things like diet or exercise plans - to create a risk assessment tool that helps young people understand their health risks and how to improve them.
They are also studying how the Mediterranean diet works at the cellular and molecular level. The Mediterranean diet, common in countries like Italy, Greece and Spain, involves a lot of vegetables, some fish and seafood, and olive oil as the main source of fat. It is already known to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.
They will focus on key biological pathways, like AMPK, which helps regulate energy balance in cells, and NRF2, which helps protect cells from stress and damage. They will also explore less-studied foods, such as mushrooms and the traditional Middle Eastern herb blend, Za'atar.
Another aspect to the programme is its aim to raise awareness. The project integrates science with mixed methods such as systems thinking, focus groups, visual methods and questionnaires to develop approaches accepted by young people, including comics, videos, a nutritional guidebook and physical activity programmes.
PAS GRAS aims for a statistically significant reduction in youth obesity within the next four years, with the long-term goal of a reduction in Europe by 30% by 2050. By combining scientific, personalised and a community-based approach, the researchers hope they can also lower future obesity-related diseases.
