Tall and short, dark and light, freckled and tanned, we come in myriad packages with myriad features, most of them determined by our genetics before we ever draw breath. Very few of these traits can we control, and we just have to play the hand we're dealt.
But when people are earnestly trying to do weight loss and failing again and again, many ultimately get the sneaking suspicion that they really are playing against a stacked deck. They may be right.
If you're one of those who subscribes to the notion that America's growing weight problem is solely a failure of personal restraint or will, it's time to reconsider. Solid research is helping us understand just how truly stacked that deck is, because in addition to anything else, for some people who struggle with their weight loss, it seems that any given exercise effort will yield far less result than it offers anyone else-because of what's already coded on their DNA.
When it comes to weight loss management, genetic factors get blamed for a lot of body issues where they may or may not have a role: "She's just big-boned." "He just carries his cargo up front." "The whole family is built that way." You've heard them all, and they might have sounded more like excuses than explanations.
But think about the genetically based elements that we already know are out of our control: People certainly do have different body types, with some of us thicker or thinner than others, and shorter or taller.
Then there's the particular predisposition for distribution, for having our weight in certain places on our bodies, which could be the old apple/pear body-type contrast, or a tendency to carry fat on the arms.
Add to those a predisposition for building muscle easily or not. And if you want to be very specific, throw in that natural love or dislike of athletic pursuits that would certainly come into play with exercise.
From just those few features, you can see how someone with a unfavorable combination of genetic factors is going to be at a disadvantage compared to someone with a better "stack" of factors.
And now there's this: researchers have identified specific combinations of genes that appear to correlate very strongly with fat retention independent of, even in spite of, exercise.
In a very closely controlled, year-long study with post-menopausal women-chosen as subjects because they are more stable, hormonally speaking-researchers divided the participants into an exercise intervention group and a control group.
All the subjects were carefully selected for specific features of their health and lifestyle. Various lab tests were taken, including certain genetic tests. The subjects were all instructed not to change their dietary habits. The control group was assigned a moderate stretching regimen to use over the course of the study, and the intervention group was given a moderate intensity, 45-minute workout for five days a week, initially with supervision. There was detailed tracking, because the researchers were especially interested in identifying distinctions between genetic and environmental factors.
At the end of the study period, the researchers found a distinct variability in the amount of fat lost by some exercisers that could not be explained by their adherence levels.
So the researchers looked to the genetic data, and indeed, there were two specific genes that stood out related to patterns of weight loss and exercise. Participants with certain combinations of those genes and their variants had significantly different weight loss outcomes.
