Weight-controlling gene is discovered

UPI ^ | 09/06/07

[nypokerface]

DALLAS, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have determined a single "skinny gene" might alone control whether a body tends to accumulate fat.

"From worms to mammals, this gene controls fat formation," said Dr. Jonathan Graff of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the study's senior author. "It could explain why so many people struggle to lose weight and suggests an entirely new direction for developing medical treatments that address the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity."

The gene, called adipose, was discovered more than 50 years ago but its mechanism was not determined.

In the new study, researchers discovered the gene is likely a high-level "master switch" that is dose-sensitive, meaning the various combinations of its variants lead to a range of body types from slim to medium to obese.

"This is good news for potential obesity treatments, because it’s like a volume control instead of a light switch; it can be turned up or down, not just on or off," Graff said. "Eventually, of course, the idea is to develop drugs to target this system, but that’s in the years to come."

The research appears in the journal Cell Metabolism.

[muawiyah]

The "lifestyle component" model confounds "symptoms" with "cause".

There's a 100% correspondence with having the genes. That is, all people with Type II diabetes have the genes. On the other hand, not all people with the genes develop Type II diabetes, and some people with the genes who have developed Type II diabetes, actually turn things around and cease to exhibit symptoms.

Which means that you can avoid Type II diabetes, or at least the most serious consequences, with a highly controlled diet and exercise.

The diet looks very much like that of pre-agricultural human beings ~ big game hunters in fact. The amount of exercise is not out of reason, but is more like that experienced by nomadic hunter/gatherers than modern, sedentary populations.

[Sonora]

So, it follows that diet and exercise will prevent and turnaround Diabetes in a lot of cases and Diabetes has become a problem because people are not watching their diet and exercises. All I'm saying is that fat people are more the norm now and diabetes has become very common. Obviously the gene must have always been there, but lifestyle changes have given the gene a front and center place in society. It's very sad to me. I know a few people with Diabetes - it can be brutal and, of course, life threatening.

[muawiyah]

Yes, the Earth's population is made up of two different races ~ a residual pre-agricultural type who thrive on roasted meats and hearty root crops, and a more modern group fraught with mutant genes that force them to subsist on a meager diet of wholegrain products and fried beans.

It's only because the mutants are in a 95% majority that the 5% normal people are treated as though they have a disease.

We'd definitely be better off by diverting most of our croplands to grazing.

[Mamzelle]

I know. Like nobody's ever seen a scrawny teenage boy stand in front of a refrigerator and inhale fifty dollars' worth of groceries-- and still look pitifully malnourished...

But no--it's all about gluttony and sloth. Can't possibly be something associated with biochemistry and the changes in our diets...

[Yankereb]

Your behavior sounds more like that of an obessive-compulsive, but that doesn’t matter, the important thing is that you are thin, and society loves thin. Isn’t that all that matters? You should do what you have to in order for the “in crowd” to love you. Keep running!

[CarrotAndStick]

Well, obesity is soon becoming the new “cool”...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcRiXOONqf0

[Those women are beautiful, I’d say.]

[Yankereb]

You are so right, but gross generalization is always the instrument of choice for people who practice self agrandizement.

In the words of Dana Carvey, “Aren’t we special.” They make tooting their own horn into an art form.

[Mamzelle]

re: When this judgmental attitude occurs among doctors, it can blind them to possible medical reasons for weight gain, leaving serious issues undiagnosed while the doctors clucks his tongue and tries to shame the patient into eating less)))

Most doctors know less than dieticians, and depend on the dieticians' advice. Every dietician I have know (anecdotal) was substantially overweight, a couple were morbidly obese, and all couldn't cook worth a darn.

What is needed is not necessarily to worry about the doctor's judgmentalism but do some research on how changes in our diet may be triggering changes in metabolism. Maybe we eat more and exercise less...but can that really be the whole story?

Here's my own anecdote--ten years ago I started driving one teenager to school. I remember no three-hundred pound kids waddling around the pickup spot. Five years ago I started noticing the waddlers struggling to climb into their parents' minivans. Last year there seemed to be twice as many.

Haven't you noticed that the kids getting fat has happened mostly in the past ten years?

Can they really have become so slothful and gluttonous in such a short period of time?

Teenagers didn't eat so healthy when I was a kid...it was understood that young folks could "get away" with a lot of noshing up the junk. I was sedentary--a complete bookworm. I ate what I pleased. I was very thin.

I think we need to get off the judgement wagon long enough to investigate the biochemistry of sudden-onset juvenile obesity.

[tob2]

“Scientists are now discovering the facts behind what many people have been telling them for years. Genes, viruses, insulin response are all recognized medical conditions that we are just now beginning to understand how they impact the human metabolism.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! The issue of why some people have difficulty maintaining a healthy weight is not always how much is on the fork and how often. Sadly, your words of wisdom will be lost on many people, including posters here in FreeRepublic. It is probably easier to criticize, verbally harass, and make disgusting jokes about people who have weight issues than it is to truly understand the reasons why the one size fits all approach to weight management is not working for everybody.

[muawiyah]

One theory is that in the past human beings were much heavier than has been the case over the last few thousand years.

With some serious cross-breeding among types taking place now, we are simply breeding back to the original stock of heavier folks.

[Mamzelle]

My theory is that there is some chemical trigger in highly-processed food that is fouling up a teenager's natural ability to get away with abusing his body. I'm mostly thinking about the kids right now--it's painful to watch these hefty athletes try to play sports...they've got to be ruining their joints.

And, lots of these poor porky kids are very physically active!!

One thing that has entered the daily diet in a big way is pizza--bread, tomatoes, cheese...walk down the aisle of a frozen section and count how many varieties there are. Pizza is the new "poverty food" and general snack. Rural convenience stores have (unappetizing) pizza hot and ready to go.

Researchers could start right there--examine the chemistry of the processed flour and ingredients. And I suspect the problem is in the bread or the cheese.

[muawiyah]

Pizza is not much different from the traditional flat bread baked around the Mediterranean and the Middle East for about 6,000+ years.

In fact, the only difference is it's made in the United States ~

Try public school ~ they eliminated recess about 20 years ago.

[Mamzelle]

Flatbread was definitely different years ago. It would have been filled with chewy fiber that was hard to separate out, it would have been made with difficult-to-grow grain without fertilizers or insecticide. It wouldn't have the chemical preservatives or even the vitamin additives.

I'm not doing an Al Gore or ragging on modern agriculture here. We "study" all kinds of silly things. Study what kids are eating--because their knees are going to need replacement at age thirty!

[Mamzelle]

Vitamins. We're all taking a lot more of them than we did thirty-forty years ago. They're in our food, added to our milk, there's even a new vitamin-laced Coca-Cola.

Who knows? Maybe those vitamins are helping to make us fat.

[Panzerfaust]

Error in your death-camp comparison. Many people died long before reaching the emaciated look you so cherish. They are NOT in the liberation pictures.

My analogy said that all people will lose weight in a calorie deficit situation. The fact that you see no fat people in the liberation pictures proves my point. If a person expires early on in the calorie deficit situation, then they will have lost less weight, but they still would have lost weight.

On a side note, I certainly do not cherish an emaciated appearance, particularly the appearance of those brutalized by war criminals. Put your claws away and spare us all the smarmy attitude.

[muawiyah]

Speaking of smarmy, your response fits the bill.

[Panzerfaust]

You’ve been around long enough to know better, but I guess you can’t take your lumps. Enjoy being right all the time, I guess it keeps you entertained in retirement.

[valkyrieanne]

Some people are tall, some people are short. Surely that’s not hard to understand, right? Then why is it so hard to believe that some people are genetically disposed to be fatter than others?

Because there's no current moral panic going on now about tallness. We don't have a "tallness epidemic." (Although I guess it is still funny that "short people have no reason to live.")

It's ridiculous that you can't have a simple discussion of science around here without it 1) turning into a "fat-bashing" show, 2) turning into a "I lost 50 lbs on the [insert here] diet."

[valkyrieanne]

Re: everyone, if starved long enough, will lose weight.

That is true. Ancel Keyes did studies fifty years ago, right after World War II on starvation. The US gov't paid him and a team of researchers because they wanted to figure out how to deal with all those starving in Europe at the end of WW II.

Basically what Keyes found out is this. A starving person will eat like crazy when they finally have access to food. They will eat to the point where they regain their previous weight - and some people will end up slightly heavier than they were before the starvation.

Keyes himself hated overweight people - but his science has been proven time and again. Basically, a fat person who has been starved is not a normal, genetically thin person. He is a fat person who is in the process of starvation.

Living a life of permanent starvation is not an option for most people. Thus for most people, diets (which are in essence controlled starvation) do not work over the long run. It's been shown time and again that after five years, over 95% of dieters have regained the weight they lost - and many have regained more than what they've lost.

[red irish]

There was another topic like this one and you said the very same thing as now. As I have grown older and sick one thing I have learned was the mistakes I have made throughout my lifetime . Many times I took it upon myself to judge people in different situations only to find out I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. So now I try in difficult situations when I begin to make snap judgment about someone I keep positive thoughts about them and look to myself to see what needs to be done better. I have known people who were overweight for many different reasons and personally I didn't give a damn about it. There were reasons,health reasons. But most people didn't know that.