About 7 out of every 1,000 people with morbid obesity are missing a section of DNA on chromosome 16 which contains about 30 genes, according to the results of a project funded by the European Union and published in 'Nature'. The authors of the study, from the Imperial College London (United Kingdom) and 10 other European research centres suggest that the absence of this section may have a serious effect on the weight of the affected people.
A.R. | 5 February 2010
The European support for the study comes from the ENGAGE project (European Network for Genetic epidemiology and genomics), financed through various initiatives of the 5th and 7th Framework Program.
Previous investigations have identified several genetic variations, most of them are single mutations in the DNA that can change the function of a gene, but this is the first work that found that obesity may be caused by genetic errors. One still does not know the role of genes in the missing section, but previous studies suggest that they might be associated with developmental delay, schizophrenia and autism.
Based on the results, only a small percentage (7 of 1000) had this alteration. However, in these cases, the effect is crucial. Thus, the carriers of the error could have a 5,000% risk of developing severe obesity.
