In the fight against obesity, scientists increasingly attach importance to genes and heredity, and not to upbringing and the environment. According to experts, they play the most important role in determining the weight of a man, making some "ideals of harmony", and others - literally cripples for life.

Each person has a unique set of genes, heredity and lifestyle. Small subtleties in any of these components can explain the completeness or leanness.

In the weight control involved about 340 genes. Most of them contribute to weight gain, but there are also protective mechanisms. But their implementation can be inconclusive, if the consumption of calories exceeds the cost.

Scientists from the English University of Leeds found that people who are resistant to obesity tend to have very fast saturation. It seems that their brain is more sensitive to dopamine, the "hormone of happiness," which is also responsible for stimulating the saturation center. In obese people, the number of receptors to this substance is reduced, therefore, in order to achieve the same food pleasure, more food is needed. And yet - fatty food, so beloved by "gluttons", suppresses control of appetite.

There is also a group of genes responsible for physical activity. It seems that many are just doomed to lead a practically "vegetable" life. Some of them try to lose weight, but the weight returns to a greater extent, and some can not even force themselves to be more mobile, although they know perfectly well that it is useful. Moreover, genes determine the amount of energy needed to maintain basic functions at rest. Normally, two thirds of calories burned are spent on this process. In one study, an experiment was set up, children with the same body weight were given the same number of calories and they gained quite different weights. Other things being equal, the identical twins gained the same weight, and, being on a diet, equally dumped the weight.

Does this mean that people who are overweight should not try to lose weight - they are doomed to eternal completeness and all the problems associated with it? Not at all. Of course, in their case, weight loss will be much slower than in healthy people, and most likely they will never succeed in achieving an ideal. But do not forget that genes are not the only, though supposedly the most important, factor controlling weight, and their "defectiveness" does not mean that everything is lost.

Medicus. En.

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