Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside

[AngryAmish]

"It was 1959. Jules Hirsch, a research physician at Rockefeller University, had gotten curious about weight loss in the obese. He was about to start a simple experiment that would change forever the way scientists think about fat."

snip

"The researchers concluded that 70 percent of the variation in peoples’ weights may be accounted for by inheritance, a figure that means that weight is more strongly inherited than nearly any other condition, including mental illness, breast cancer or heart disease.

The results did not mean that people are completely helpless to control their weight, Dr. Stunkard said. But, he said, it did mean that those who tend to be fat will have to constantly battle their genetic inheritance if they want to reach and maintain a significantly lower weight.

The findings also provided evidence for a phenomenon that scientists like Dr. Hirsch and Dr. Leibel were certain was true — each person has a comfortable weight range to which the body gravitates. The range might span 10 or 20 pounds: someone might be able to weigh 120 to 140 pounds without too much effort. Going much above or much below the natural weight range is difficult, however; the body resists by increasing or decreasing the appetite and changing the metabolism to push the weight back to the range it seeks."

So I had a skinny daddy (who lost a lot of his stomach to ulcers) and a rounder mom. I definitely take after my mother body-type wise (stockier). I recently lost around 15-20 lbs by exercising regularly.

Does your weight correspond to your parents? And what does this mean to the weight loss industry?

[whoneedstickets]

1. Are Fat genes becoming more prevalent?

If genetics it the primary cause of obesity, then Fat people must be having more children since that would be the only explanation for the explosion of obesity in the US in the last 20 years. Did we kill off all the skinny men in WWII or something? Are skinny women not having kids?

[RC Quake]

2. Here we go again...

I guess that since I'm the only non-fat person in my family, and I'm the only infertile one, it's because I didn't allow my fat genes to take over my life. If I had given in and stayed fat, I would have had children. Wow...don't you just love science! And the doctor's said it was unexplained infertility. I'm calling them right now. :P

[fasttense]

3. The skinny people were less likely to survive famine and they died off.

Efficient storage of fat and a never ending hunger would probably be very useful during times of food shortages.

But inheritance can be fought. My mother weighs well over 300 lbs at 5' 5", my grandmother was about 275lbs. (at 5'2") before she got ill and died. My Great grandmother, who lived to be 112, was almost 400 lbs at 5' 8". I'm about 140 at 5' 4". It is a struggle to keep from gaining weight especially now that I'm nearing fifty. The women in my family all gained excess weight after menopause. I'm exercising and watching ever mouthful. But there are months were I average 1500 calories a day, run 3 miles a day and gain weight. Sigh...... :banghead:

[whoneedstickets]

5. Sure! That's the pro-adaptive reason behind weight gain...

...But did we have a famine in the 70's that killed off all the skinny Americans or something?



Here is an animated map. I am very skeptical that genetics is the source of our weight gain. It just happened too fast..

http://health.msn.com/reports/obesity/default.aspx?GT1=8307

[SoCalDem]

7. Think back to the 70's ...what things happened then?... that had not happened before

1. fast food establishments burst onto the scene..EVERYWHERE

2. HCFS started being put into packaged/processed foods in a big way

3. the Boomers started their own households and became "adults".. (the largest generation has to have an effect on anything one chooses to study)

4. Mega mergers, corporatization & mass-advertizing created "needs" we never had before

5. Single-parent stigma disappeared, bringing with it a lot of poverty...poverty means a lot of cheap/starchy foods & unsafe areas of living, so children often stayed indoors

6. schools eliminated PE & home ec

7. working Moms meant that children did not learn to cook in large numbers

[Rosemary2205]

8. I really encourage you to look at carbs.

My sister inherited the "fat genes" in our family. She's never been over 140 but like you it's a constant struggle. Eventually she figured out if she mostly stays away from the heavier carbs (like pasta pototoes rice bread) then the battle is so much easier for her. She doesn't count carbs like those Atkins or Southbeach diets. She eats plenty of fruit and veggies all all sorts and very lean meat.

Appearantly the medical community is learning of this phenomenon with people who have been on very low calorie liquid diets. (Like Optifast). They are realizing that much of the reason for the weight gains over time is not JUST the number of calories. Appearantly people who's bodies just want to be obese also process carbs different - though they don't seem to know why that is yet.

[TahitiNut]

4. How fat will all these popcorn threads make me??

:popcorn:

[SoCalDem]

6. Depends how much caramel you drizzle on it?

[dmallind]

9. Did nobody else actually read this?`

One of my pet peeves is the silly attempt to prove or disprove science with anecdotes, or to take aggregate probabilities as 100% guarantees that can be demolished with a single contrary example.

70% of the variance in our weight may be controlled by genetics. Not 100%. Not that every fat mother will have a fat kid or vice versa. Not that there are no other contributing factors. 70% of the contribution towards obesity comes from genetics (which is not the same as inheritance from immediate parents). Nothing about the recent increase in obesity can disprove that, or prove it for that matter. 100%-70% is what? 30% not zero.

I might as well try to disprove that obesity increases are duie to sedentary lifestyles and greater caloric intake in processed foods by asking if there were no fat people when life was harder and food less processed. There were of course - where did THEIR obesity come from if there is no genetic component? Why can a couple or family share the same diet and lifestyle but gain or lose weight differently if it's all behavioral?

Yes those are strawman arguments - but so are the ones that deny genetics has a lot to do with it by pointing to obesity caused by other factors (that 30%) or differing weight from immediate generations. I have green eyes. Neither of my parents do - am I adopted or did some of my other ancestors have green eye genes? Obesity is a multilayered topic (as well as a vastly overblown one) with multiple causes both genetic and behavioral. The sanctimonious holier than thou attitude that it's always someone's "fault" (as if being fatter than normal is a mortal sin or crime for which there needs to be a culprit, rather than just a variation in human physiology, regardless of its basis) is shortsighted. How much more obvious can it be that some people need to work more and eat more carefully to stay at the "ideal" weight while others can pretty much eat and live as they choose? And that some will never be slim even if they lived on an ideal diet and exercised regularly.

What's next? An "ideal" grip strength with the belittling of naturally weak people because they won't spend the 4 hours a day weight training and massive protein intake it would need to get them up to a level a strong person has naturally? Denial that strength varies
and endless preaching that anyone can achieve "ideal" strength if they just tried a little harder?

[SheilaT]

10. Even without considering

the fast food industry, or high-fructose corn syrup, we are surrounded by food. As a friend who struggled with obesity said to me about twenty years ago, the problem is, unlike cigarettes, you can't just give up food forever.

And that, I think, is an important point. As addictive as cigarettes are, as much pleasure as many smokers get from them, every current and ex smoker knows that you CAN give up cigarettes forever and you won't die or suffer truly terrible consequences. (And I'm trying, as someone who never smoked, to by sympathetic and understanding of the difficulties of giving up smoking.) But you must eat to live.

I've also several times read that some researchers are beginning to believe that there may be some kind of viral connection to the surge in obesity. And before everyone starts simply dumping on the obese for being weak-willed or whatever, keep in mind that for many years certain kinds of ulcers were considered to be caused by stress, until a patient researcher discovered the bacteria that causes those ulcers.

[dmallind]

12. Good point

Reluctant to use personal anecdotes lest I seem hypocritical but trust me I in no way do so to try to establish any rule or theory - just to give one data point.

I'm a big fellow. As I often say I am 210lbs of solid muscle I just weigh 285. That's close to the truth. Technically, assuming I can do basic math and my doctor can measure body fat percentage accurately, I would be 194lbs with zero body fat - a state which is neither possible nor theoretically beneficial. At my lightest adult weight of 217 I had defined abdominals and no blubber anywhere.

I'm 5'10-11". The ideal weight charts tell me I should be no more than 175 or so even on a big frame - which I don't really have. What I do have is a heck of a lot of muscle from weightlifting, rugby, etc. I would be, quite literally, dead long before I reacged even the upper limit, let alone the suipposed ideal midpoint of 155. I'd need cremation or several months worth of maggot activity to get close to that :-)

And of course, no denying it, I do have a rather large gut. But I'm not fat because of food. Maybe a little to do with quality of food as I tend not to worry about eating fried food or sweets, but I don't eat all that much of anything, so certainly not quantity. I'm quite a sparing eater for anyone, let alone anyone of my considerable bulk both muscular and adipose. This is not because I care about being overweight or am trying to diet, just because I rarely get hungry and get full quickly.

Could I lose weight? Sure if I cared enough - but not from eating less but by exercising more. I haven't had this checked out because I am not that fussed either way and perfectly content to live how I want and ignore how much I weigh up until any time it affects what I can do (that I care about - it probably stops me from running ten miles - but I have no interest in doing that), but my gut feel, pun very much intended, is that I have an exceptionally slow metabolism. Eating food more often paradoxically enough and exercising frequently may change that to some degree, but it is the way it is, and I doubt I could ever become a calorie-burining machine.

[Bake]

11. Does this mean some type of gene therapy is possible?

My cholesterol level is extremely good. I eat like a billy goat. My doctor says it's the "lucky gene club."

Is gene therapy possible for people with high cholesterol? And if so, by extension, is it possible as a treatment for the genetic aspects of obesity?

Bake