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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Its clear genetics play a role in obesity, but how? Its a question researchers are still trying to answer. A new study is the first to use brain response to food to predict weight gain. Researchers focused on a response that is connected to a particular genetic variant.
The research was done in college-aged women and adolescent girls. Study authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain response as the participant drank a chocolate milkshake. They found women with a higher body mass responded to the shake with less vigor than the brains of the leaner peers. Researchers say this suggests obese people may overeat to compensate for a reduced reward response.
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Study authors say this blunted response to the milkshake was particularly pronounced in women with the TaqlA1 gene, which is associated with increased body mass as well as reduction of dopamine signaling in the brain. They also found after one year, the women with this variant were much more likely to gain weight than other participants in the study.
The study is novel because it is the first to use brain response to food to try to predict future weight gain, Dana Small, associate professor at Yale and associate fellow, The John B. Pierce Laboratory, was quoted as saying. Individual differences in how the brain processes food reward have been postulated to play a role explaining why some, but not all, people are gaining weight in an environment where calories are plentiful. Our finding is exciting because it supports this possibility by demonstrating an association between an abnormal response to food and future weight gain -- and it shows that this relationship depends upon your genetic make-up.
SOURCE: Science, 2008
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