Tight genes: appetite for high-fat foods may be precoded in obese people’s DNA
Individuals with rare variations in the MC4R gene are more attracted to fatty food
People with a variant of a particular gene prefer high-fat food compared to people without it, said a study on Tuesday, suggesting our dietary preferences may be at last partly precoded.
Unexpectedly, the same individuals had a reduced taste for sugar, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications.
“Our work shows that even if you tightly control the appearance and taste of food, our brains can detect the nutrient content,” said paper co-author Sadaf Farooqi of the University of Cambridge, whose researchers conducted the study.
Farooqi and a team tested the food preferences of 14 obese individuals with rare variations in the MC4R gene, and compared them to lean people and other obese people without the mutation.
The participants were given an all-you-can-eat buffet of chicken korma.
There were three dishes, differing only in their fat contribution to total calorie content – either 20 per cent, 40 per cent or 60 per cent. The tasters did not know of the difference, and the dishes were made to look the same.