United States: Researchers at de CODE genetics in a paper in Nature Communicated to discover how BMI determines the risk factors of diseases of obesity. They looked at how specific genetic variations associated with BMI could influence a person’s predisposition to diseases using genetic information sourced from Iceland and the UK Biobank.
According to Medicalxpress, the researchers wanted to know if these risks are associated with persons BMI only or if other factors were also involved in the equation. This work enables us to know more about the imagined relation of genes and BMI to befitting health challenges and potential innovations that can come up with methods of combating diseases that accost obesity.
Because the nature of BMI is associated with genetic factors that have the potential of being inherited, the scientists would be able to establish which diseases are likely to be associated with high value of BMI.
They found that some of the disease risks were directly linked to BMI, while others had a more complex relationship with genetic factors.
This research is important because it could lead to more personalized healthcare, where doctors can better predict and manage health risks based on a person’s genetics and BMI.
The findings also suggest that lifestyle changes, along with genetic insights, could help reduce the risk of diseases tied to obesity. Overall, this study is a step forward in understanding how genetics and weight affect our long-term health.
Some of the conditions that the study tried to establish a genetic link include fatty liver disease, glucose intolerance and knee replacement surgeries and the authors stated somehow these genetic links were less significant when extent of BMI was considered by the researchers.
More time spent on television viewing was associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes, heart failure, stroke, not fully because of BMI but still, overall percentage was lesser.
Overall, BMI had the same effect on both sexes, but the differences attributed to sex for certain disease such as myocardial infarction indicate that sex factors play a part in the ways that BMI affects disease risk. The scientists also pointed out that other variables that reflect the important characteristic of obesity, namely temporal changes in BMI rather than cross-sectional BMI or other characteristics highly related to cross-sectional BMI, might account for some of the excess risk.
Additionally, this study points out to the fact that, diseases which are more prevalent in the obese population than in others can be prevented by simply lowering BMI.