A new study published in Science Translational Medicine has revealed that urine test can determine the risk of obesity in both men and women.

The researchers examined 2, 000 people in the United States and in United Kingdom. The urine samples were collected over two separate 24-hour periods, three weeks apart. They found 25 chemical markers in the urine which were associated with body mass index (BMI) of the participants. They have called the 25 markers a metabolic signature of obesity.

Dr. Paul Elliott, a co-author of the study and the head of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Imperial College London, said, "Our results point to patterns of metabolic markers in the urine associated with obesity".

The researchers discovered that out of 25 markers, of which nine of the markers were compounds that were actually produced by the bacterial flora in our guts. Researchers thought that some of the markers were linked to muscle metabolism. “These findings provide possible starting points for new approaches to preventing and treating obesity and its associated diseases,” said Jeremy Nicholson, author from the Imperial College London.

By Lizitha