Is Obesity Genetic? The Surprising Result of a Study!
Fat parents, fat children – a formula that a study now proves. According to the study, obesity is not only dependent on the eating habits of the child, but also on the lifestyle of the parents.
Unhealthy nutrition affects genetic material
It is clear to all expectant mothers that they must eat a varied and healthy diet during pregnancy – and avoid cigarettes and alcohol. But this alone is not enough to give the child a perfect start in life. According to the latest scientific findings, the behaviour before the child is conceived is also not insignificant, whether the offspring is overweight or not. This is because an unhealthy diet activates certain genes in the genetic material, which can lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Researchers have now used mice to investigate the effects of lifestyle and eating habits. The experts published the study results in the journal “Nature Genetics”.
Obesity is inherited epigenetically
In the study, the mice were fed a high-fat diet and consequently developed type 2 diabetes. The offspring were conceived by artificial insemination and carried by healthy surrogate mothers. This enabled the researchers to rule out the possibility that the baby’s weight was influenced by the metabolism of the overweight mouse mother or by her behaviour during pregnancy and lactation.
The results show: female offspring became fatter, male offspring had blood sugar problems. Furthermore, the maternal influence on the change in metabolism was even greater than the paternal influence. “It was shown that both egg cells and sperm cells pass on epigenetic information, which led to severe obesity, especially in female offspring”, said study leader Johannes Beckers from the Institute of Experimental Genetics (IEG) at Helmholtz Zentrum München.
Scientists from Copenhagen have previously shown that the whole thing can also be transferred to humans. The researchers found out that the susceptibility to obesity is passed on to the next generation. The reason for this is epigenetic changes in spermatozoa that affect the regulation of genes that control appetite.
Healthy lifestyle pays off
What do we learn from this? Overweight is in the genes. In order to avoid that the children and yourself suffer from obesity, you should maintain a good and healthy lifestyle. By the way: Epigenetic inheritance, unlike genetic inheritance, is in principle reversible. This means that diabetes type 2 and obesity can be reduced again, provided that a corresponding lifestyle is followed.