The Skinny Gene?

Posted September 7, 2007 at 05:00 PM by Megan Hueter

Section: Her Health, Her News

With about 2/3 of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, one wanders, as a population, will we ever recover from this edpidemic? Well, the answer may lie in genetics. That’s right, researched announced today that they are hopeful to have found agene which may control the way the body burns fat or packs on the pounds. By “turning up the volume” on this “skinny gene,” esearchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center say the discovery could lead to drug therapy that prevents obesity and diabetes.

There’s a ‘skinny gene’ out there, and when it’s reduced in function, animals become fat,” said Jonathan Graff, the study’s senior author and a professor of developmental biology and internal medicine at the medical centre. “It works in fat cells and not by changing appetite, and could account for what I would call this epidemic of obesity and diabetes.”

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