Is Obesity Linked to Genetics? Study Says It’s Influenced By Your Diet

By , in Health News on . Tagged width: , ,

You hear many people saying that they’re overweight because it’s in the genes, but new research reveals that not genetics influence your weight. Bad news, only the diet influences the ability to lose or gaining weight.

Researchers at London’s King’s College looked at the way gut processes and sends fat to the rest of the body. They examined stool samples from twins and identified biomarkers in the samples which corresponded to the fat around the waist.

Unfortunately for those that kept blaming genetics on gaining weight, scientists saw that only 17.9% of the gut processes that control storage of fat were caused by genetics. The environment of the gut, meaning the food and the drinks we consume control 67.7% of the gut activity. This means that people must watch out what they eat and how they consume the energy and fat.

Scientists at the King’s College hope that their study will help nutritionists create personalized diets and treatment for obesity in the future.

A Healthy Gut Environment Can Help You Lose Weight

One of the authors of the study is Dr. Jonas Zierer, and he explains how the gut environment can be controlled:

“This new knowledge means we can alter the gut environment and confront the challenge of obesity from a new angle that is related to modifiable factors such as diet and the microbes in the gut. This is exciting, because unlike our genes and our innate risk to develop fat around the belly, the gut microbes can be modified with probiotics, with drugs or with high-fibre diets.”

The head of the research group, Professor Tim Spector, added that their study is significant, showing for the first time that gut microbes will respond to the food we eat and it will control and process the fat:

“Knowing that they are largely controlled by what we eat rather than our genes is great news, and opens up many ways to use food as medicine.”

In conclusion, a healthy lifestyle is going to make you a healthier person.

Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.