It is common knowledge these days that the amount of overweight people in the world has skyrocketed in the 21st century. Being a healthy person myself, this has always disturbed me, and it is why I chose to read the article Can your genes really make you fat? written by Judith Wurtman. In her article, Wurtman (2011) explains how since the dawn of time, humans have continually tried to blame different parts of our bodies for our rapidly increasing obesity rate. Initially, the pituitary gland was blamed, and when that was no longer a solid scapegoat, people began to blame their genetic makeup. She details how the focus shifted quickly from glands to the FTO gene, which is a gene linked to obesity in those expressing it. She assesses the validity…show more content… This study reported that although the FTO gene has a 23% chance of increasing a person’s risk for obesity, it has a small effect on weight gain, only contributing to a body mass increase of slightly more than 2 pounds. Furthermore, the study reports that it is possible to greatly reduce this risk through physical activity. These findings were supported by Rampersaud et al. (2008), who studied a population of 704 healthy individuals, and compared the effects of varying levels of physical activity on FTO single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) linked to body fat composition. What they concluded was that physical activity is able to reduce the probability of an FTO carrier becoming obese (Rampersaud et al., 2008). The SNP region of the FTO gene that presented the strongest relationship with body mass index was identified to be rs1861868. When subjected to higher levels of physical activity, this correlation was reduced (Rampersaud et al., 2008). This provides strong support for Wurtman’s assertion that physical activity is capable of diminishing the small effect that the FTO gene has on body composition. I feel that these findings support the argument that those who inherit the FTO gene are not doomed to a life of obesity. I believe that healthy eating and frequent exercise are very important for the health of everyone, FTO carrier or not. It is…show more content… The study also concluded that when subjects with the FTO gene reduced their fat intake and increased their carbohydrate intake, therefore lowering total energy consumption, BMI did not differ from those not expressing the gene (Lappalainen et al., 2012). As previously mentioned, the relationship between BMI and FTO gene expression was only seen in subjects reporting a high fat and low carbohydrate diet, which further supports the idea that the effects of the gene can be diminished through some attention to diet (Lappalainen et al.,
