Feast, famine, and the genetics of obesity: you can't have it both ways

December 15, 2010

LA JOLLA, CA—In addition to fast food, desk jobs, and inertia, there is one more thing to blame for unwanted pounds-our genome, which has apparently not caught up with the fact that we no longer live in the Stone Age.

That is one conclusion drawn by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who recently showed that mice lacking a gene regulating energy balance are protected from weight gain, even on a high fat diet. These findings have implications for the worldwide obesity epidemic and its consequences, such as type two diabetes.

In the December 16, 2010 issue of Nature, a team led by Marc Montminy, M.D., Ph.D, professor in the Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, reports that a gene known as CRTC3 decreases energy expenditure by fat cells. "Ideas about obesity are based on concepts of feast or famine," said Montminy. "As humans, we developed ways of coping with famine by expressing genes like CRTC3 to slow the rate of fat burning. Individuals with these active "thrifty genes" had an advantage-they could survive long periods without food."

Learn more at salk.edu