Obesity Family Studies

Genes influence every aspect of human physiology, development, and adaptation. Obesity is no exception. Obesity is a significant health problem affecting all types of individuals; rich and poor, educated and uneducated, Westernized and non-Westernized societies. Over the past 40 years, the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled in the United States and continues to grow at an alarming rate, affecting adults, adolescents, and families. Approximately 66 % of adults and 33 % of children and teenagers in the US are overweight. When considering obesity, like for most medical diseases, many influencing factors need to be considered, in either an individual's environment, their biology, or both. To understand whether the obesity epidemic is impacted by influences in nature, nurture, or both it is essential to analyze parental and early life influences that have a significant impact on an individual's setting and dietary habits. Obesity is a serious …show more content…
A genome-wide association study scans hundreds of thousands of genetic markers across thousands of individuals’ complete sets of DNA to find gene variations that may be related to a particular disease. The researchers indicated that these studies can be used to find gene variations that play a role in common, complex diseases such as obesity. The researchers also specified that often, a change in just one small section of the DNA that encodes for a gene can make a difference in the gene’s action. These tiny DNA variations, called “gene variants” or “single-nucleotide polymorphisms” (SNPs), are often related to disease risk. In the case of obesity researchers at the Peninsula Medical school used genome-wide association studies to identify the first obesity-related gene variants in the so-called “fat mass and obesity-associated” also referred to as the FTO gene on chromosome 16. The