EPMA Journal - Featured article: Caution, “normal” BMI —EPMA Position Paper 2021

This month's featured article for EPMA Journal is entitled 'Caution, “normal” BMI: health risks associated with potentially masked individual underweight—EPMA Position Paper 2021 (this opens in a new tab)' by Olga Golubnitschaja et al. 

An increasing interest in a healthy lifestyle raises questions about optimal body weight. It should be clearly discriminated between the standardised “normal” body weight and individually optimal weight, and the basic principle of personalised medicine “one size does not fit all” has to be applied. Development of innovative screening programmes is essential to promote population health by application of individualised patient profiling, multi-parametric analysis leading to cost-effective targeted prevention.

In a long-term way, a significantly improved healthcare economy is one of the clear benefits of the proposed paradigm shift from reactive medicine to 3PM; a tight collaboration between all stakeholders including scientific community, healthcare providers, patient organisations, policy-makers and educators is essential for the smooth implementation of the 3PM concepts.