When getting in to last season’s clothes is a struggle, it is all too easy to tell ourselves that being plump is in our genes.
But those cursed with the ‘fat gene’ are mistakenly shunning exercise in the belief they are powerless to shift those extra pounds, a study claims.
Experts have found that when it comes to our weight, we are not slaves to our genes after all.
Being active can melt away unsightly rolls of fat – even in those who have inherited DNA that makes them prone to obesity.
Their study focused on the ‘junk food gene’, a strain of DNA carried by around two-thirds of Britons which makes them crave fatty and sugary foods.
hose with a flawed version of the FTO gene, as it is known, eat 100 calories more per meal than people without it. Over a week, this amounts to an extra 2,100 calories – a whole day’s food.
Researchers at the Medical Research Council’s Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge examined data on genes, weight and the exercise habits of 220,000 adults from around the world.
Like others before it, the study linked flawed FTO genes with obesity. But it also highlighted the value of exercise.
In couch-potatoes with one copy of the gene, odds of obesity were 30 per cent higher than in those who do not have it. In those who exercised, the gene only raised the odds 22 per cent.
It means exercise cuts the effect of the FTO gene by 27 per cent, the PLoS Medicine journal reports.
Some 49 per cent of Britons have one flawed copy of the FTO gene.
Another 14 per cent have two copies and are on average almost half a stone heavier than people without the gene. Exercise can help them too, the study found.
Those with two copies of the gene who did not exercise had a 69 per cent higher chance of obesity than those without the gene. The figure fell by 29 per cent in those who exercised.
A summary by the journal’s editors said: ‘The wider public view of genetically determined obesity not being amenable to exercise is incorrect.’
source: dailymail
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