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Obesity isn’t just a matter of food and exercise — it may be in your genetic code, according to new research.
“The causes of obesity are very complex and in most cases, a combination of many factors. In this study, however, we found a clear genetic driver for obesity,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Mattia Frontini, a British Heart Foundation senior fellow and associate professor of cellular biology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, in an e- post .
Researchers used data from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource that follows people long-term, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Med. Data from people with two defective copies of a particular gene (SMIM1) were compared with those who did not have both defective copies.
Women with the gene mutation weighed an extra 4.6 kilograms (10.14 pounds), and men with the variant weighed an extra 2.4 kilograms (5.29 pounds), according to the study.
The defective copies of the SMIM1 gene cause less thyroid function and reduced energy expenditure, says Frontini, “which means that, given the same food intake, less energy is used and that this excess is stored as fat.”
Not only is the correlation significant, but this study also identifies a specific gene mutation, which is not always the case in research, said Dr. Philipp Scherer, director of the Touchstone Diabetes Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. . He was not part of the study.
“It’s an exciting study because it puts a new gene on the map,” Scherer said. “It’s a real gene, rather than just a genomic locus with a mutation somewhere that we don’t understand. … We think we’re looking at a gene here that we can study further.”
This genetic finding is ‘quite rare’
This particular genetic finding does not apply to a large population of people with obesity—only about 1 in 5,000 people have this genetic makeup, Frontini said.
“That’s pretty rare, but you multiply that to a population of 10 (million), 15 million and there are quite a few people out there who would be walking around with that mutation and maybe they weren’t fully aware of the fact that there is genetic. explanation for their struggle with obesity,” Scherer said.
Thyroid dysfunction is common, affecting almost 2 per cent of the UK population, says Frontini. And thyroid dysfunction is routinely treated with relatively inexpensive medication, Frontini said.
The next step in the research is to find out if people with the SMIM1 mutation are eligible to treat their thyroid with medication, he added.
“If they are, we plan to conduct a randomized clinical trial to determine whether they would benefit from the treatment,” Frontini said. “The hope is that they will, and we can improve their quality of life using cheap, safe treatment.”
The best method in the meantime
Weight is not just a matter of willpower or laziness. The size and shape of your body is determined by many factors – some you have control over and others you don’t, according to the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
These factors include lifestyle habits, how much sleep you get, medications, health problems, where you live and work, and genetics, according to the organization.
Research into genetic factors and potential treatments is still ongoing, but Scherer said the best way to treat obesity right now is with GLP-1 medications.
The answer is not to go on a severe restrictive diet, said Brooke Alpert, registered dietitian and author of “The Diet Detox: Why Your Diet Is Making You Fat and What to Do About It,” in an earlier CNN article.
Demonizing foods too much can make you crave them more, and then the guilt you feel when you give in can lead to a cycle of alternating between restricting yourself and binge drinking, she added.
If you want to make lifestyle changes, it’s best to try a gradual, sustainable approach to maintaining a healthy relationship with food, said Emily Feig, a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, in the same CNN report.
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source link https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/researchers-have-found-a-clear-genetic-trigger-for-obesity-that-applies-to-some-people-1.6938229
