A grave injustice to be sure, affording a difference in lifestyle that is simply unbearable... and incomprehensible! While some try at all costs to loose a measly few pounds, others, intolerable in their 'privilege,' can smugly afford to eat without counting calories. In all seriousness, this is a mysterious metabolic aberration, the origin of which researchers have partly uncovered in their paper published in the journal PLOS Genetics in 2019.
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As you might expect, the reason for this astonishing propensity to be thin is partially genetic: overweight immune people apparently benefit from the absence of a small group of genes linked to obesity.
Sadaf Farooqi, from the University of Cambridge (UK) and one of the research team's members, reveals in a statement:
This work shows for the first time that preternaturally thin, healthy people are generally healthy because they have a lower burden of genes that increase an individual's risk of being overweight.
A large-scale study
To reach this conclusion, the scientists compared the genetic makeup of a large contingent: more than 1,600 thin people, nearly 2,000 suffering from obesity, and some 10,400 people of a weight considered normal, the control group. At the same time, the study participants had to complete a questionnaire on their lifestyle and eating habits.
Scientists were thus able to calculate the 'genetic risk score' of each of the participants. As a result, obese people were found to be at much greater risk - genetically speaking - than their normal weight or lean counterparts for weight gain.
Cruel nature
'The dice of genetics are stacked against [obese people],' says another member of the scientific team, Inês Barroso, of the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Far from stating that this genome is the only one responsible for easy thinness, researchers nevertheless want to exonerate obese people from the accusations and judgement they seem to automatically receive.
[Thin people are not thin] because they are morally superior, as some like to imply. It's easy to jump to conclusions and criticise people for their weight, but science shows things are much more complex. We have much less control over our weight than we would like to think.
Solutions on the horizon
'If we can find the genes that stop [thin people] from gaining weight, we may be able to target these genes in order to find new weight loss strategies and help people who do not have this advantage' concludes the scientist. Enough to finally tip the scales...
