Can’t lose weight? How your genetics may predispose you to obesity
- A study looked at how genetics affected body weight, compared it to a large database of people and assigned scores for each individual
- 10 per cent of adults with the highest scores were 25 times as likely to be severely obese than those with the lowest scores
Some people who are overweight report that they eat no more than slender friends and exercise just as much, but still can’t drop the pounds.
Now researchers think they know why this is possible, an explanation they hope will help destigmatise obesity and offer new paths to prevent a condition linked with killers including cancer in ever younger people.
Scientists at the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University found that there is a genetic tendency to obesity. The results were published in the journal Cell.
“We’ve known for a long time that some people are born with DNA predisposing them to obesity,” says lead author Amit V. Khera, a cardiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Centre for Genomic Medicine. “Now, we can quantify those differences in a meaningful way, and potentially explore new routes for achieving better health.”
Obesity is a major global health issue. Nearly 40 per cent of US adults and about 18.5 per cent of children are considered obese, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported. In Hong Kong, the Centre for Health Protection says 20.7 per cent of the population aged 18 to 64 is obese.