The year when you were born can affect your risk of obesity, according to an online edition for girls and women between 14 and 35 years old Pannochka. net And this is not just another sensation from astrologers, but the results of a serious scientific study published in the American edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Earlier, scientists linked the variant of the FTO gene (alpha-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase) with an increased risk of obesity.

Now, the staff of the Department of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) argue that the FTO gene variant depends on the person's year of birth. More precisely, from the era.

Researchers note that most of the scientific papers that have examined the influence of genes and the environment on obesity have focused on people of about the same age. They say that the analysis of such cohorts does not take into account the highly variable external factors.

To understand the impact of these external factors in different epochs, scientists analyzed different age groups from the Framingham Offspring Study, a long-term study conducted from 1971 to 2008. The body mass index of participants for the study period was measured 8 times.

It was found that in people born before 1942, the body mass index does not depend on the variant of the FTO gene. But those who were born after the war, there is a strong link between obesity and the variant of this gene.

"Analyzing the cohort of the Framingham Heart Study participants, we saw that the link between the body mass index and the FTO gene variant is all the stronger, the later you were born. This tells us that for different generations there are different threats to health, "- writes Dr. James Niels Rosenquist (James Niels Rosenquist), lead author of the study.

After the Second World, people's way of life changed.

Although scientists do not talk about specific changes in the environment that are associated with obesity, they suggest that this increase in a person's dependence on technology, a reduction in exercise, the availability of high-calorie processed foods. All these factors began to affect especially the inhabitants of developed countries after the Second World War.

"We know that the environment plays a huge role in the expression of genes, this fact has been repeatedly tested on siblings (brothers and sisters) of different birth years. Over the years, food products change, the state of the environment changes, our level of physical activity changes - all this affects the genes, "concluded Dr. Rosenquist.

Scientists believe that this is only the beginning.

In the future, rapidly changing environmental conditions (man-made load, sitting at the computer) will increasingly influence the expression of our genes, causing unpredictable changes in the body.

In 2013, medical online edition Medical News Today reported that the FTO gene is also associated with melanoma - one of the most dangerous types of skin cancer. A year earlier, scientists discovered a link between FTO and the development of depression.

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