Trends in Diagnosing Obesity: The CALOR Study
Authors' conclusion
In people with elevated BMI in the United States and Japan, there was underdiagnosis of obesity and a high prevalence of interrelated diseases.
Study context
- Population
- Adults with recorded BMI ≥ 30 kg/m² (US; Optum Clinformatics Data Mart) or ≥ 25 kg/m² (Japan; Medical Data Vision), 2016–2024US and Japan cohorts
- Exposure
- Obesity diagnosis vs no obesity diagnosis
- Outcome
- Prevalence of interrelated diseases, US
Methodological detailsdatabase study, US and Japan
- Database study
- US and Japan
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
- US cohort size
- N = 3,584,120
- US: with obesity diagnosis
- 70.1%
- US T2D, obesity diagnosis vs none
- 49.3% vs. 29.9%
- US CKD, obesity diagnosis vs none
- 32.9% vs. 18.8%
- US HF, obesity diagnosis vs none
- 23.3% vs. 9.8%
- Japan cohort size
- N = 3,140,900
- Japan: with obesity diagnosis
- 2.3%
- Japan T2D, obesity diagnosis vs none
- 42.2% vs. 25.9%
- Japan CKD, obesity diagnosis vs none
- 14.3% vs. 8.6%
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
US trend: interrelated disease burden by year of first diagnosis
- Interrelated disease burden generally higher for those first diagnosed in 2024 vs 2016-2020
Original publication
Trends in Diagnosing Obesity: The CALOR Study. Obesity (Silver Spring). Published 18 July 2026. doi:10.
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