Max Petersen, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism & Lipid Research at WashU Medicine, is the lead author of a new research article published in the Journal of Lipid Research, titled “Influence of obesity and insulin resistance with hepatic steatosis on the human plasma lipidome.”
As noted by the authors, “insulin resistance accompanied by hepatic steatosis [fatty liver disease] is a common complication of obesity.” In their research, Drs. Petersen and colleagues studied three groups of people segmented by metabolic health and body mass index to identify potential plasma lipid biomarkers or indicators of insulin resistance with hepatic steatosis. In these three groups, fasting blood samples were analyzed for not only the lipids commonly measured in clinical medicine (triglycerides and cholesterol), but hundreds of other lipids as well.
The analysis included 759 lipid species across 16 subclasses and 84 plasma eicosanoids. The results revealed that obesity with insulin resistance with hepatic steatosis was associated with widespread changes in blood lipids. However, these changes were not seen in people with obesity and normal insulin sensitivity. In contrast, the authors reported that “adiposity has a greater impact than insulin resistance on plasma eicosanoid concentrations.”
Journal of Lipid Research, Volume 67, Issue 1, January 2026 Petersen, Max C. et al. DOI: 10.1016/j.jlr.2025.100969