Obesity is a disease of even greater epidemiological consequence and represents the opposite end of the metabolic spectrum from cachexia. Curiously, cachexia patients often experience improvement in the key metabolic sequelae of obesity, including diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Therefore, by studying mechanisms of adipose wasting in cachexia, we hope to also identify therapeutic insights for obesity. We have shown that molecules that drive the cachexia phenotype can be used to control appetite and adipose changes associated with obesity (Arora and Gupta et al., 2017, JCI Insight).