Scientists say they have discovered the secret behind why some people are skinny while others pile on the pounds easily. Their work reveals newly discovered genetic regions linked to being very slim.
The international team say this supports the idea that, for some people, being thin has more to do with inheriting a “lucky” set of genes than having a perfect diet or lifestyle.
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In this investigation, scientists compared DNA samples from 1,600 healthy thin people in the UK … with those of 2,000 severely obese people and 10,400 people of normal weight.
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Researchers found people who were obese were more likely to have a set of genes linked to being overweight.
Meanwhile, people who were skinny not only had fewer genes linked to obesity but also had changes in gene regions newly associated with healthy thinness.
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Lead researcher Prof Sadaf Farooqi, from the University of Cambridge, called on people to be less judgemental about others’ weight.
“This research shows for the first time that healthy thin people are generally thin because they have a lower burden of genes that increase a person’s chances of being overweight and not because they are morally superior, as some people like to suggest,” she said.
Read full, original post: Skinny genes the ‘secret to staying slim’
