Weird Genetic Science

The Associated Press reports via Yahoo News that scientists at MIT and Harvard have found an obesity gene called FTO; when defective it causes food energy to be stored as fat. It is believed this creates a new pathway to develop drugs to help people control obesity ... no small thing.

Obesity affects more than 500 million people worldwide and contributes to a host of diseases. In the U.S., about one-third of adults are obese and another one-third are more modestly overweight.

The FTO gene turns out to influence obesity indirectly, as a master switch that affects two other genes that control thermogenesis, or burning off energy. It's long been known that brown or beige fatty tissue — the so-called "good fat" — burns calories, while the more common white fat stores them. The body constantly makes fat cells, and the two genes determine whether they become brown or white ones.

We've all known people who eat like a horse and never gain a pound. This sounds promising. Faster, please.