subject: A ‘fat gene,' Maybe a ‘thin pill?" [print this page] A fat gene,' Maybe a thin pill?" A fat gene,' Maybe a thin pill?"
Why do some people have to count every calorie they consume while others can enjoy holiday treats, guilt-free? Researchers at Oxford University discovered a correlation between a fat gene' and one's appetite that help to shed light on reasons for weight gain.
The research suggests that such a correlation can open doors for the possibility of controlling one's appetite with medication, or an anti-obesity' pill.
The discovery is based on pervious research about a specific variant of the FTO gene that is common in obese people. What scientists were unsure about is whether the gene is causative or merely a result of obesity. The most recent research confirms that the gene is indeed causative of obesity by increasing one's appetite for food.
Researchers compared regular mice with mice that had been bred with the FTO variant gene. They discovered that the mice with the FTO variant gene ate more than the mice without the gene variant and became much fatter. While the test mice were healthy in all other aspects, their appetites were much larger than the regular mice.
The study also tested gender. Female mice with two variants of the FTO gene were 22% larger than regular female mice. Male mice with the gene variants were 10 percent larger than their male counterparts.
"The gene is novel to obesity research and it is going to be exciting to find out how it works," said Professor Roger Cox from the Medical Research Council in England.
The results, published in the journal Nurture Genetics, are encouraging prospects for scientists to develop an "anti-obesity" pill. Obesity rates are high in the United States and the UK and continue to grow.
"This work makes us confident that FTO is an important gene that contributes to obesity," Professor Frances Ashcroft, one of the lead researchers involved in the study, stated.
"We can now think about developing drugs that turn down the activity of the FTO gene as potential anti-obesity pills. That's a long way off and there's no certainty of success, but it's an enticing prospect."
Such a development could provide an easy solution to weight-loss that avoids expensive treatments like weight-loss surgery.
