Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have important roles in health and disease, but are chemically complex and difficult to measure accurately. This consensus statement proposes guidelines and best practices on the nomenclature and assessment of ROS, oxidative reactions and oxidative damage in cells, tissues and in vivo.

Holst reflects on the development of GLP-1-based drugs for the therapy of obesity, from early observations to remarkable results in more recent clinical trials, discussing physiological, pharmacological and clinical considerations related to their use.

This authoritative Perspective lays a foundation for the field of obesity research by comparing commonalities and differences between competing models of obesity pathogenesis and by defining terms that are at the core of this discussion.

Veniant et al. report here on a GIPR antagonist conjugated to GLP-1 analogues that reduces body weight and improves metabolic markers in preclinical and phase 1 clinical settings.

Nam et al. show that limited glucose availability similar to the tumour microenvironment confers resistance against chemotherapeutic drugs that target DNA synthesis.

Castells-Nobau et al. provide insight into how bacteriophages in the gut microbiome contribute to regulating food addiction by modulating tryptophan and tyrosine metabolism in the host.

The insulin inhibitory receptor (inceptor) is found to bind to insulin and to regulate insulin stores by directing proinsulin and insulin towards lysosomal degradation.

The authors highlight the role of acyl coenzyme A binding protein (encoded by DBI) in Cushing’s syndrome by using six different inhibition methods and mapping the physiological effects.

The NAD⁺ synthesis enzyme NAMPT is shown to possess additional enzymatic activity as a phosphoribosylase, which restricts the virion incorporation of viral proteins and underpins its antiviral effect

The authors show how genetic variants of the human circadian clock gene PER3 are related to winter depression. In mice, under shorter light exposure, such variants enhance glucocorticoid signalling, inhibiting serotonin production and leading to depression-like behaviours.

Here, we introduce Artificial Intelligence Ready and Equitable Atlas for Diabetes Insights (AI-READI), a multidisciplinary data-generation project designed to create and share a multimodal dataset optimized for artificial intelligence research in type 2 diabetes mellitus.

We have lost a distinguished scientist who made indelible contributions to our knowledge of exercise physiology and diabetes and was an advocate for mentoring and transparency in research.

Although Western societies are mesmerized by the power of new anti-obesity drugs, we must not forget how diet can affect metabolic outcomes. In this Focus issue, and accompanying web collection, we showcase a series of Reviews, Comments and original research articles that present up-to-date evidence on how dietary interventions can affect cardiometabolic health.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are now recognized as powerful modulators of metabolism, and thus the new field of EV-mediated metabolic regulation is growing exponentially. Here, we discuss special experimental considerations for the study of EV function in metabolism.

Despite the high utility and widespread use of Cre driver lines, lack of Cre specificity, Cre-induced toxicity or poor experimental design can affect experimental results and conclusions. Such pitfalls must be considered before embarking on any Cre-based studies in metabolic research.