Articles in 2025

Brown adipose tissue is a heat-generating organ and promising therapeutic target for treating obesity and metabolic diseases. Its presence in adults supports metabolic health, whereas its decline with age and weight gain might promote chronic disease. Efforts to understand its fascinating biology and translational potential continue to gain momentum.

The efficacy of anti-obesity drugs that use glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonism and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide agonism raises critical questions about how next-generation drugs might offer increased metabolic benefits. In 2025, new research into incretin-based treatments has brought us closer to answering these questions.

The quest to understand the adverse health outcomes linked to endocrine-disrupting chemicals continued in 2025. Insights have been gained regarding their effects on metabolic health, their key characteristics, the mechanisms underlying their effects and the burden of disorders associated with exposure to these chemicals in terms of mortality and life-years lost.

Growing evidence has linked ultra-processed food consumption to chronic disease risk. In 2025, this field reached a turning point, with experimental, clinical and epidemiological studies converging to elucidate the underlying mechanisms at play.

Oestrogen levels change after menopause and with weight gain above the normal BMI category, both of which can affect breast cancer risk and outcomes. This Review explores the current understanding of these associations.

Physiological changes in female individuals during the menopause transition influence cardiometabolic health and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) incidence. T2DM prevention programmes during midlife among individuals who are at high risk are cost effective but, we suggest, could be enhanced by consideration of the menopause transition and other sex-specific differences in T2DM prevention strategies.

Whole-exome sequencing and single-cell technologies are providing unprecedented insights into adenomyosis, uncovering a complex phylogenetic relationship between eutopic and ectopic endometria and identifying prolactin signalling as a possible pathogenic factor. However, these advances contrast with the failure of a clinical trial for a DRD2 agonist, which underscores the formidable translational challenges.

In addition to having health benefits for those who perform it, exercise might alter parental physiology in ways that support metabolic function in offspring. In this Review, the authors discuss animal studies and data from human study participants that show how exercise affects the placenta, breast milk and sperm in ways that improve offspring health.

Hypophysitis is a rare disease characterized by inflammation of the pituitary gland that can cause hypopituitarism-related symptoms, headaches and visual disturbances. This Review discusses the current understanding of the epidemiology, pathophysiology, diagnosis and clinical management of hypophysitis.

Healthy fetal and placental development depends upon the availability of appropriate nutrients and levels of oxygen, as well as optimal metabolism. In this Review, the authors discuss how metabolism affects feto–placental development by controlling several key mechanisms, including epigenetic changes and post-translational modification of key proteins.

There is a substantial link between thyroid disease, particularly hypothyroidism, and renal dysfunction, including chronic kidney disease (CKD). This Review explores the epidemiology and the molecular mechanisms of the relationship between thyroid dysfunction and CKD, and discusses therapeutic options.

Non-classic apparent mineralocorticoid excess is an underrecognized cause of low-renin hypertension, which is often misdiagnosed as essential hypertension. This condition challenges traditional classifications and highlights the need for mechanism-based diagnostics and medical care.

Despite progress in obesity treatment, prevention remains the best option to avoid associated comorbidities. The European Cluster of Obesity Research Projects (OBEClust) is a pan-European multidisciplinary network of obesity experts, linked to nine European Union-funded projects, aiming to enhance the collective effect of obesity research in Europe, with an emphasis on prevention.