The team from the Department of Preventive Medicine of the University of Valencia took part, along with Dr. Jose Ordovas, in the discovery of the interaction between diet and genetics and its impact on both obesity as high body mass indexes.

The research, conducted by the Human Nutrition Research Center in Boston (USA) demonstrated that genetic risk of obesity “is highly influenced by the type of diet.” “Obesity occurs not only because of food or genetic susceptibility, but depends on a very close interaction between both factors,” the UV.

The results of this work, which will “move forward” in dietary recommendations, have just been published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

Thus, scientists “break with the deterministic view of obesity-associated gene, as they have identified that there is a genetic variation in the genome of individuals associated with increased risk of obesity, but only when individuals consume a diet high in saturated fat.

RISK INCREASES TO 80%

Consequently, this type of food ‘increases the risk of obesity up to 80% in people with the mutation, compared with others that also consume diets high in saturated fats, but have not analyzed the genetic mutation, “said Dolors Corella .

However, when the diet is low in saturated fat, this genetic variation is not associated with increased risk of obesity, which is reflected “the importance of diet to modify the increased risk conferred by genetic variation.

Specifically, the genetic marker of obesity has been located in the promoter of a gene called APOA2, located on chromosome number 1 in humans. Thus, using a simple genetic test can know what people have the genetic variant of risk.

In this case, the result of genetic testing for the presence of the mutation would be ‘CC’, while the T allele carriers would have a normal result. The frequency of CC people is 15% in U.S. white population and similar in Europe.

The relevance of this research is that it has been the first time that the results of gene-diet interactions have been reproduced in three independent populations, so it “has increased its validity.” The included studies were: the U.S. Framingham, GOLDN called also in America, and the Boston study Puerto Rican Study, focused on lifestyle habits of the Puerto Rican community living in Boston.

This genetic variation is studied only in 15% of the population, so there are still other variations to be discovered. “The future joint analysis will allow us to have greater knowledge about the influence of genetic susceptibility and diet in the development of obesity and, thus, able to apply more personalized dietary recommendations and successful,” argued Dr. Corella, who continues his research in this line of nutrigenomics of obesity in the University of Valencia and integrated into the CIBER Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition.