MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Closer to discovering how genetic flaws increase obesity risks
Dr Rachel Batterham, some brain set ups are ‘biologically programmed to eat more’ The mystery of a genetic flaw which greatly increases the risk of obesity in one in six people has been solved by an international group of scientists. A version of an obesity gene, called FTO, had been linked to a bigger belly, but the reason why was uncertain.
A study, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, showed it made fatty foods more tempting and altered levels of the hunger hormone, ghrelin.
Obesity experts said drugs targeting ghrelin might reduce weight gain. There is a strong family link with obesity, and a person's genetic code is thought to play a major role in the risk of them becoming overweight.
People have two copies of the FTO gene - one from each parent - and each copy comes in a high and a low-risk form. Those with two-high risk copies of the FTO gene are thought to be 70% more likely to become obese than those with low-risk genes.
But no-one knew why. A team, led by researchers at University College London, tested two groups of men. All were a normal weight, but one group had the high-risk FTO genes and the other was low risk.
The first tests looked at levels of the hormone ghrelin either side of a meal in 10 men from each group.
Levels of the hormone, which makes people hungry, did not fall as far in the high-risk patients after the meal. Their ghrelin levels also began to climb more quickly.
In separate tests, a series of brain scans after a meal showed further differences between the two groups. Men with the high-risk genes found pictures of high-fat foods more appealing than the low-risk men.
Dr Rachel Batterham, the head of the centre for obesity research at University College London, told the BBC News website: “Their brain is set up to be particularly interested in anything to do with high-calorie food.”
She said they were “biologically programmed to eat more”.
Dr Batterham said understanding how FTO affected the odds of becoming overweight would help patients. She said exercise such as cycling was an excellent way to lower ghrelin levels and there was a significant amount of research from pharmaceutical companies working on the hormone.
She added: “Also protein meals do lower ghrelin more, so anything that suppresses ghrelin is more likely to be effective in FTO patients.”
The FTO mutations were probably life-saving at one point in human history when piling on the pounds in the summer would help people survive the winter.
The study was funded by the Rosetrees Trust and the Medical Research Council. (BBC).-
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Read all commentsI have another more simple explanation according with my own research.
Jul 16th, 2013 - 07:35 am 0And the answer is junk fast food diet, sedentary style of life and stress. The 3 combined produce excessive fatty tissue due to a metabolism disorder.
The body adapts and learns and always will try to satisfy it energy needs in the easy way as possible.
Junk processed food is like heroin to the body and once the body had try it for a while become addicted to it because can turned it faster and without much work to Glucose (primary form of sugar).
The Glucose is the fuel that allows our cell from muscle and brain to work and are absorbed by the cells with the help of a hormone produced by the pancreas called Insulin.
People eating junk fast food or with high level of carbos as primary diet produce an extra work to the Pancreas as it has to produce more Insulin to force the cells from muscle to absorb more Glucose.
That way the Pancreas keeps Glucose to acceptable levels in blood (70 to 110 mg/dL) so at least the person makes physical activities that burns that excess of glucose in blood, with the time cells start to become resistant to the hormone insulin. This doesn’t happen in one day or one year is a long silent process that when you became aware of that could be too late.
So why a person get fat through this process?
Easy as the cells from muscles cannot take anymore Glucose due to resistance to Insulin the body activates others cell from the fatty tissue to store that fuel and are turned into Fat that keeps growing and growing.
The alternative system works until the Pancreas gets exhausted to produce too much Insulin with the time or all cells start to reject Insulin.
For me that is the reason why in some countries with junk base diet like MCShit’s, Poison Colas, fry chips, etc. have a lot of children fat and with diseases as DM2 being so young.
I know that someone will think and the Italians that eat pasta all day?
I thought the same question and I think to have the answer...
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Sloth and greed? Subjective judgments of opinions of food dressed up as science.
Jul 16th, 2013 - 01:32 pm 0@1 No, you're wrong. The real facts are that argies are, congenitally, fat slobs. This explains much. As they get older, argie females become rounder. At the same time, the guts of male argies overspill their belts and hang down to their knees. There is a positive aspect. Taken together, the 2-inch argie dicks can't reach, thus eliminating procreation. It's why many older argie males go for schoolgirls, in the hope they can reach. It's not really paedophilia, it's desperation. The argie “answer” to intelligence. Genetically, argies are anal, criminal, depraved, degenerate, futile, greedy, incompetent, larcenous, mendacious, rapacious, stupid, vicious and xenophobic. None of these are “survival” characteristics. So all we need to do is wait. Given the way they like to spray chemicals on their crops and inject drugs into their livestock, it shouldn't be long before they kill themselves off. Let's hope they are successful!
Jul 16th, 2013 - 03:31 pm 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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