Obesity is on the rise not just in humans, but also in dogs, whose history of selective breeding makes them an ideal species for studying the balance between genetics, diet and lifestyle in weight gain.
In a new paper published on Thursday in Science, researchers identified a gene strongly linked to obesity in pet pooches — and found it is also associated with weight gain in humans.
“The prevailing attitude toward obesity is that people are just a bit rubbish about controlling what they eat, whereas actually, our data shows that if you’re a high-risk individual, it takes more effort to keep you slim,” said lead author Eleanor Raffan, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development, and Neuroscience.
Photo: AFP
A veterinarian as well as a scientist, Raffan has long sought to study animal genetics to uncover broader biological insights that apply across species, including to humans.
For this study, she and her colleagues focused on British Labrador retrievers.
“Anyone who knows dogs will understand that starting with Labradors is a good idea because they’re very prone to getting obese,” she said. “They’ve got this reputation for being really foodie dogs, really obsessed by food.”
The team collected slobber samples from 241 dogs and conducted a genome-wide association study, which examines an organism’s entire set of genes to identify areas linked to a specific trait.
The top five genes were also present in humans, with the one exerting the strongest influence called DENND1B.
They also assessed how much the dogs pestered their owners for food and whether they were fussy eaters.
“Low-risk dogs tended to remain a healthy weight, irrespective of how their owners managed their food and exercise,” Raffan said. “But if you were a high-genetic-risk dog, then if your owners were complacent about diet and exercise, you were likely to get really, really overweight.”
For Raffan, the study has two major takeaways.
First, it sheds new light on how DENND1B affects a brain pathway responsible for regulating energy balance and appetite. Known as the leptin-melanocortin pathway, this system is a key target for some anti-obesity drugs.
“Only by understanding biology and the nuances of it can we possibly improve our treatment and management of obesity,” she said.
Second, the study allowed researchers to quantify genetic risk for obesity in individual dogs — and the level of effort required to keep them at a healthy weight. This is easier to measure in dogs than in humans, since their diet and exercise are entirely controlled by their owners.
“We shouldn’t be rude to owners of overweight dogs,” Raffan said.
“It’s not that they’re hopeless individuals who don’t care about their pets. It’s just that they’ve got animals who persistently seek out opportunities to eat, and just a little bit extra every day is enough to cause weight gain over time,” she said.
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
DENIAL: Pyongyang said a South Korean drone filmed unspecified areas in a North Korean border town, but Seoul said it did not operate drones on the dates it cited North Korea’s military accused South Korea of flying drones across the border between the nations this week, yesterday warning that the South would face consequences for its “unpardonable hysteria.” Seoul quickly denied the accusation, but the development is likely to further dim prospects for its efforts to restore ties with Pyongyang. North Korean forces used special electronic warfare assets on Sunday to bring down a South Korean drone flying over North Korea’s border town. The drone was equipped with two cameras that filmed unspecified areas, the General Staff of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement. South Korea infiltrated another drone
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Cambodia’s government on Wednesday said that it had arrested and extradited to China a tycoon who has been accused of running a huge online scam operation. The Cambodian Ministry of the Interior said that Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi (陳志) and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited on Tuesday at the request of Chinese authorities. Chen formerly had dual nationality, but his Cambodian citizenship was revoked last month, the ministry said. US prosecutors in October last year brought conspiracy charges against Chen, alleging that he had been the mastermind behind a multinational cyberfraud network, used his other businesses to launder
RSS