Obesity gene linked to hormonal changes that favor energy surplus
Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - 11:41
in Health & Medicine
Elderly humans carrying a common variant of the fat mass and obesity gene FTO also have a shifted endocrine balance, research shows. Low blood concentrations of the satiety hormone leptin and high blood concentrations of the hunger promoting hormone ghrelin makes carriers of the FTO gene put on weight. “We found that elderly carrying an obesity-susceptible variant of the FTO gene had plasma ghrelin levels that were approximately 9 percent higher than in non-carriers,” says one researcher.