In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, the British researchers said that since fat plays an important role in peoples' susceptibility to metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, the regulating gene could be target for drugs to treat such illnesses.
"This is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes," said Tim Spector of King's College London, who led the study.
Some other interesting tidbits, from the article:
More than half a billion people, or one in 10 adults worldwide, are obese and the numbers have doubled since the 1980s as the obesity epidemic has spilled over from wealthy into poorer nations.I used to think that the correlation between obesity and poverty was a First World Problem, but the article implies this is no longer the case. Of course the terms "first world" and "poorer nations" are not very scientific.
In the United States, obesity-related diseases already account for nearly 10 percent of medical spending -- an estimated $147 billion a year.Is "food" one of the line items on that $147 billion tab? If so, I can think of a really easy way to reduce that number substantially.
Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, is also reaching epidemic levels worldwide as rates of obesity rise.
There's a lot of information packed into the preceding sentence. The bottom line seems to be that we're not only losing the battle against obesity; we also seem to have lost the War on Getting People to Do What We Think They Should. Otherwise, it seems like "scientists" or people in similar positions of authority would have figured out by now how to get overweight people to, for example, exercise and watch their diet.
