What an inspiring few days at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) 2026 in Istanbul! Our SiA members Mariëtte Boon, Liesbeth van Rossum, Robin Lengton, Joëlle Oosterman, and Susanne Kuckuck (Erasmus MC) were there! It was a congress full of energy, inspiration, and a strong sense of community with other researchers and doctors in the field of obesity.
Robin Lengton, Susanne Kuckuck, and Joëlle Oosterman each received a Goodlife travel grant (NVE – Goodlife Healthcare Reisbeurzen 2026 – Nederlandse Vereniging voor Endocrinologie) worth €500 per person to attend this congress in Istanbul, Turkey.
Scientific Presentations
The congress provided an excellent opportunity to follow international trends and developments, exchange experiences, and bring back ideas that are valuable for their work in the Netherlands. Mariëtte, Robin, Joëlle, and Susanne also presented their own work during poster sessions. Mariëtte Boon presented her research on daily cold exposure during 6 weeks that reduces fat mass in males and females with overweight or obesity. Robin Lengton’s work focused on increased glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity in individuals with obesity compared with lean individuals using an in vitro bioassay. Susanne Kuckuck presented her poster ‘Long-term Cortisol and Cortisone Levels as Predictors of Metabolic Syndrome Component Trajectories: a 7-Year Longitudinal Study’. Joëlle Oosterman presented her work in two posters: 1) ‘Resting energy expenditure and muscle strength are preserved after weight loss induced by liraglutide or naltrexone bupropion’, and 2) ‘Unravelling differences in glucocorticoid regulation between South Asians and Europids’.
In addition to the scientific presentations and sessions, our SiA members also enjoyed exploring Istanbul together, where hard work and fun went hand in hand. It was a wonderful mix of professional development and social enjoyment.
ECO in Istanbul 12th to 15th of May 2026
Check Causes Obesity
Also during the ECO, as well as in Prague at the European Congress of Endocrinology right before the ECO in Istanbul, Prof. Dr. Liesbeth van Rossum presented her work. She delivered five presentations, and in the two most important ones, she launched the new international tool CheckCausesObesity.com. This tool can screen and monitor a wide range of factors that may contribute to overweight and obesity.
Importantly, the tool is algorithm-based and grounded in international guideline and scientific evidence and also screens for psychological and social factors, such as stress, depressive symptoms, binge eating disorder, loneliness, and financial worries. Van Rossum presented new real-world data from the first 50,000 people who completed the Dutch version of the tool (www.checkoorzakenovergewicht.nl). Financial problems, loneliness, and mental stress increased significantly as BMI rose. Of course, this relationship can go both ways.
International Application
What’s new is that the tool can now be used internationally, as the English version is ready. From this month, the tool can also be used worldwide to monitor interventions, as people can complete the questionnaire multiple times. This offers new possibilities for personalised medicine on a large scale. For example, we can track whether people receive certain treatments, whether they taper corticosteroids or other medications, improve their lifestyle, and whether psychosocial problems improve or worsen.
During the congress, many countries expressed interest in using this tool. Liesbeth van Rossum: “We will be working further on this in the coming months.”
This also offers many new opportunities for Stress in Action to collect real-world data. It is particularly interesting that policymakers at the municipal level can see which local factors seem to contribute most to overweight in each country, municipality, or neighbourhood. For example, when zooming in on Rotterdam-South—a district with high levels of poverty—we saw that 100% of respondents indicated that socio-economic problems were present.
In short, this can provide SiA with many new insights in the near future into large-scale real-world stress and mental health data in relation to overweight, as well as the effects of various interventions.
Van Rossum and PhD student Renate Meeusen even held a press conference about the psychosocial data, after which it was covered internationally in the media. See here: Higher body mass index linked to financial problems, loneliness, and stress
