A recent article that appeared in the Journal, Science, showed the discovery of obesity gene. A UK research team, led by Dr Andrew Hattersley of Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, has discovered a gene variant that occurs in over half of people of European descent that they think helps to regulate the amount of fat in the body. Obesity is linked to diabetes mellitus. People with diabetes mellitus have a particular variant of an FTO gene which was also linked with increased body weight.
The variant making people fatter differed from the other version of the FTO gene by a single mutation in the DNA sequence. People with one copy of the "fat" FTO variant had 30% chance of being obese compared to people without the gene. Those carrying two copies of the variant had a 70% increased risk of being obese, and were on average 3kg (6.6lb) heavier than a similar person with no copies. This finding helps to understand why some people cannot loose weight in spite of all attempts to loose weight.
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