Obesity? A part of genetics but not only …
We know that parents havean educational roleto play in transmitting to their descendants the good habits to acquire. Today, we learn, through a scientific study, that the overweight of a father is transmitted genetically to his children.
An epigenetic experiment
Scientist Romain Barrès of the University of Copenhagen and his team(1) are the trial leaders and claim that epigenetic changes influence the chromosomal heritage of each of us. For them, the possibility that these changes will be passed on to the next generation is increasingly credible.
Until now, this research has focused more on the mother, mainly when she was pregnant, but the paternal excess of fat and sugar influences, much more than we think, on the weight of her future children.
However, pagesContrePoint.org(2) claim that this story of obesity genes is only a quest for sensational news dangerous for overweight people. Indeed, the latter manage to persuade themselves that all this is in no way their fault. Thus, these scientific studies can give “good conscience” to these individualswithout trying to finda healthy lifestyle accompanied by appropriate physical activity.
Old studies
Indeed, this epigenetic research is not new. The difficulty faced by researchers lies in the design andcommercialization of an adequate treatmentfor these new data. It should be noted that childhood obesity of genetic origin is barely 0.01% of the world’s population, or one person in ten thousand.
Thus, when we know that in some countries such as the USA or Saudi Arabia the percentage of obese people is around 60%, it is clear that it is more junk food, excess food, lack of exercise and metabolic dysregulation that arethe main factorsof extra pounds, and not genetic considerations.
This last point is considerable in the understanding of overweight: the too much adipose tissue in the body makes it grow anarchically.
The explanation
In 2007 biologists at the University of Oxford experimented with the existence of a link between obesity and the onset of diabetes II: it is the FTO gene (FaT mass and Obesity) located on chromosome 16, which is altered.
Recent work from August 2015, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, highlights that this happens at the cellular level. Dr. Manolis Kellis recalls that there are two types of adipose tissue: brown, which contain mitochondria, and lighter ones in which we do not find these energy-producing factories. The FTO gene therefore modifies the expression of some major genes, since they intervene in the early stages of cell differentiation, and it is this differentiation that gives either brown or white adipolysis, useless, since they cause overweight and obesity. When FTO is defective, metabolism is disrupted, produces less heat and has the effect of decreasing oxygen consumption, promoting fat accumulation and increasing triglycerides.
The picture of pathological obesity is therefore this: by thelack of physical activitywe find ourselves in front of a decrease in the demand for cellular oxygen, a feeling of hunger and a strong craving for sugar. Genetics is only a tiny part of the mechanisms of onset of overweight. It is a personal physical, mental, emotional hygiene that is thebest approach in the fight against pounds.
Stephen Paul is the lead author and founder of My Health Sponsor. Holder of a diploma in health and well-being coaching with more than 200 articles in the field of health, he makes it a point of honor to offer advice based on reliable information, based on scientific research, and verified by health professionals.