The FTO gene had been designated in previous studies as “the obesity gene .” Now, new research has managed to identify another gene associated with this serious health problem that more than 60% of the Spanish population suffers. The new gene, called IRX3, would be responsible for the increase in body fat .
The study, developed by scientists from multiple universities in the US, Canada or Spain, concludes that this “fat gene” is the true responsible for the reason why we gain weight. To do this, they conducted an experiment with mice, mapping the behavior of the promoters, the DNA regions that activate gene expression within the FTO gene. Thus, the scientists discovered that the FTO gene did not directly interact with obesity, but rather another gene, IRX3.
In order to confirm this discovery, they conducted another experiment to verify the involvement of this new gene in weight gain. Thus, they observed the evolution of both mice inoculated with this new gene and mice without the gene. The result was that the mice with the IRX3 gene gained almost twice the weight on a high-fat diet; mice without the IRX3 gene did not get fat even though they ate junk food and were even thinner than normal, with a 25-30% reduction in their body weight, due to fat loss and increased body weight. metabolic rate.
The results of the study, which have been published in the journal Nature , confirm that the IRX3 gene is the one that controls body mass, thus indicating that the genetic predisposition to obesity is given, in part, by our brain.
