The twins who revealed why some people are more likely to gain weight | Health and wellness
According to a study by the Carlos III Institute of Health and the Spanish Food Safety Agency, more than half of adults and a third of minors in Spain are obese. Weight gain worries many people, while many others do not gain weight even if they lead a sedentary lifestyle without worrying about the calories they consume. These differences were previously attributed to genetics, but a team of researchers from Finland has found a new approach to find out why some people are more prone to weight gain than others. Research published in the journal Obesityis the first of its kind to decipher in a pair of twins with a large difference in weight which of the two acquired a body mass index (BMI) that was not equal to what was genetically intended.
The study, conducted by the University of Helsinki, examined the trajectory of body mass index over 36 years in twins whose levels were lower or higher than expected based on their genetics, with a particular focus on those who showed greater differences between them. . Study author Bram J. Bernzen of the Finnish Institute of Molecular Medicine says this “new approach” opens the door to discovering factors that protect or predispose people to weight gain. Moreover, it assures Obesitythat this methodology can provide valuable information on how to maintain a healthy weight.
Jaakko Kaprio, a geneticist at the Department of Genetic Epidemiology at the University of Helsinki and co-author of the study, explains that the “key finding” was that predicted weight based on genetics was sometimes closer to the weight of the thinner twin, so it may have to take into account that the heavier the twin deviates more from his biological predisposition. “This suggests that there are environmental reasons for the weight gain that affected the heavier twin that could be studied more closely,” the researcher adds.
The main contribution of their work, the authors explain, is that in previous studies applied to twins with large differences in weight, they did not establish whether the twin with the higher or lower BMI is the one who deviates more from genetic predisposition. More than 3,000 Finnish same-sex twins were examined for this study. The study began in 1975 and continued into 1981, 1990 and 2011, providing a unique look at how weight patterns change over time. The researchers found that a twin with a higher BMI in 1975 was more likely to deviate from the predicted BMI compared to a twin with a lower BMI who was more likely to deviate below the predicted one. This suggests a genetic link between baseline BMI and weight trends over decades. Individuals classified at or above the prediction in 1975 showed consistent patterns, reaching overweight and obesity, respectively, by 2011.
Accordingly, they found that some people had a genetic predisposition to gain weight more quickly as children, but their twins did not. As adults, they gained weight in the same way. Thus, they emphasize the importance of studying the reasons why a child may gain much more weight than others. Wherein, deceive The ability to eat whatever you want without gaining weight disappears when a person becomes an adult. Jennifer Lovejoy, a translational scientist at Duke University in North Carolina, US, who was not involved in the study, said it was valuable to not only focus the study on overweight twins, and asked: “What protects some people from seeing twins who are thinner?” ? It’s not entirely true that it’s genetically determined.”
In recent weeks make reality from Netflix (We are what we eat) brought to the global debate the possibility of using twins to study the effects of different diets: omnivorous or vegan. The program showed improvements in cardiovascular health in just eight weeks among those following a vegan diet. However, the TV program has some scientific flaws, which experts point out, and even discrepancies with the results published by Stanford University researchers in a scientific journal.
Therefore, the greatest achievement of the study published in Obesity These are not current findings, but rather the window of opportunity it opens for future research. Following this methodology, the scientists explain that in the future it will be possible to study children from birth to adulthood in order to better understand the factors that cause obesity and thus find formulas to combat it. According to Caprio, thanks to this discovery, it is now possible to study two different groups: those who gain weight and those who lose weight separately: “This could help researchers understand how people maintain a normal weight, and sometimes not. “They are successful.” This, in turn, could have important implications for public health strategies and personalized treatment.
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