Whileyou may blame mom’s home cooking for widening your waistline this holiday season, the more likely culprit is a far more distant relative. New research reveals that overactivity of an energy-regulating gene important to our ancient ancestors could play a major role in obesity. For decades, scientists have speculated about the existence of “thrifty genes,” ones that cause the body to burn fat for energy slowly to make it last. That would have been beneficial in hunter-gatherer times when fatty meals were often few and far between, said the current study’s lead author, Marc Montminy, a biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Such a gene would be less useful in today’s world where fatty food is all-too-easy to come by, he said, and would cause the body to store unnecessary amounts of fat. Sixty percent of U.S. residents are overweight, Montminy said, and the incidence of type 2 diabetes is on the rise.
“A thrifty gene would have been advantageous to our ancestors who went a long time between meals,” he said. “It’s not advantageous for those of us who enjoy an occasional taco.”
