Genes And Obesity

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From Your Health Journal…..”If you have not heard of the Science Daily web site, I really encourage you to visit their page, as they have some fabulous articles, like the one in today’s review about Genes and Obesity: Fast Food Isn’t Only Culprit in Expanding Waistlines — DNA Is Also to Blame. Researchers at UCLA say it’s not just what you eat that makes those pants tighter — it’s also genetics. Many of us already know this, but it is very educational to read a story that explains it. In a study, researchers found that the amount of food consumed contributed only modestly to the degree of obesity. Research demonstrates that body-fat responses to high-fat, high-sugar diets have a very strong genetic component, and have identified several genetic factors potentially regulating these responses. The dramatic increase in obesity over the past few decades has been tightly associated with an increase in obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And while high-calorie diets containing high levels of fat and sugar, along with sedentary lifestyles, have been considered the most significant environmental factors contributing to this epidemic, the new UCLA research demonstrates that body-fat responses to food are strongly inherited and linked to our DNA. Please visit the Science Daily web site (link provide below) to read the full story. I love their site, and always try to draw traffic their way. So many amazing article.”

From the article…..

Researchers at UCLA say it’s not just what you eat that makes those pants tighter — it’s also genetics. In a new study, scientists discovered that body-fat responses to a typical fast-food diet are determined in large part by genetic factors, and they have identified several genes they say may control those responses.

The study is the first of its kind to detail metabolic responses to a high-fat, high-sugar diet in a large and diverse mouse population under defined environmental conditions, modeling closely what is likely to occur in human populations. The researchers found that the amount of food consumed contributed only modestly to the degree of obesity.

The findings are published Jan. 8 in the online edition of the journal Cell Metabolism and will appear Jan. 9 in the print version.

“Our research demonstrates that body-fat responses to high-fat, high-sugar diets have a very strong genetic component, and we have identified several genetic factors potentially regulating these responses,” said first author Dr. Brian Parks, a postdoctoral researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “We found that obesity has similar genetic signatures in mice and humans, indicating the mice are a highly relevant model system to study obesity. Overall, our work has broad implications concerning the genetic nature of obesity and weight gain.”

The dramatic increase in obesity over the past few decades has been tightly associated with an increase in obesity-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And while high-calorie diets containing high levels of fat and sugar, along with sedentary lifestyles, have been considered the most significant environmental factors contributing to this epidemic, the new UCLA research demonstrates that body-fat responses to food are strongly inherited and linked to our DNA.

To read the full article…..Click here