Genetics of obesity

Obesity means having excess body fat. More than being overweight. The number one cause is eating too much. Not being active is number two. Genetics may also play a part. Obesity puts you at risk for health problems. Like heart disease. Diabetes. And high blood pressure. The good news is we can reverse these by losing weight. Changing our diet and exercise will help. Diet drugs from a doctor can also help. There is also weight-loss surgery. We use body mass index, or BMI, as a way to tell who is obese. Your weight and height determine your BMI. It gives us an idea how close you are to a healthy weight. This range is 18.5 to 25. Less than 18.5 is underweight. That can lead to problems too. BMI between 25 and 30 is overweight. A BMI above 30 is obese. About 2 in 5 Americans are obese. Scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center will use BioVU to study obesity. They will look for people who have a BMI over 30. They will then split them into groups. People with heart disease would be one group. People with BMI over 40 may be another. They will work on a formula to help figure out the groups. They will share this formula with others. They will also look for gene changes in people who do and do not have a BMI over 30. They will do this for each group. For example, they may look for people with heart disease. They will compare gene changes in those who have a BMI over 30 with those under 30. The result will be gene changes only linked to obesity. They will also look for gene changes in certain genes we know link to obesity. Last, they will look for new links between diseases and obesity. The goal is to learn who is at risk for obesity. And for which diseases obese people may be at risk. If we know who is at risk, we can try to reduce their risk for disease. Or not gain too much weight. We may also find new ways to help people lose weight. And keep it off.