Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2701

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Goddard J.
Obesity's dominant factor is genetics, scientist says
Toronto Star 2005 Oct 26
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1130277008357&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

Keywords:
obesity genes

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

Most behavioural tendencies seem to be partly genetically influenced.
But what is the point of emphasizing this?
We can’t change our genes.

There is already a well developed cultural tendency to blame something beyond our personal choices for our personal behaviour.
This emphasis on the genetic determinants of behavioural consequences- like obesity, tends to encourage further passivity in relation to taking responsibility for the shape we are in.
This passive, fatalistic outlook encourages the use of weight loss drugs as the problem is seen as a genetic, rather than a calorie balance issue for which we need to take personal responsibility.

Why would you get/give a prize for research which leads to greater consumption of undesirable weight-loss drugs?

Full text:

Oct. 26, 2005. 01:00 AM GTA COLUMNISTS

Jim Coyle
Rosie Dimanno
Joe Fiorito
Christopher Hume
Royson James

Obesity’s dominant factor is genetics, scientist says
New York professor wins award for research

But Toronto panellists give theory cool response

JOHN GODDARD
STAFF REPORTER

The notion that heredity is the main cause of obesity proved a tough sell last night for a lecturer who came to collect a prize for the thesis.

Dr. Jeffery Friedman, in town to collect the $30,000 Gairdner Award for scientific research, received a cool response for his ideas during a talk at the newly opened MaRS centre for medical and related sciences.

Friedman said blaming somebody for being obese is a bit like blaming somebody for being short. The main causes of obesity are not eating too much and lack of exercise, he said.

“The dominant factor is genetic,” the doctor said, suggesting his research could lead to future drug treatments for the condition.

But two scientists on a panel disagreed, saying that while heredity is undoubtedly a factor in obesity, public health specialists are right to prescribe exercise and a balanced diet.

“A drop in smoking came when non-smokers’ rights became the norm,” said Dr. Diane Finegood, director of the nutrition, metabolism and diabetes unit of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

`What we should be debating is the relative role of biology versus willpower and environment.’

Jeffery Friedman, Rockefeller University

Similarly, a drop in obesity will come, she said, “when stairs are placed more prominently than escalators (and) when we build our environments in a way that people can actually walk to their destinations.”

Eating less is also a solution, said Dr. Bernard Zinman, a diabetes authority at Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto. “Reduce caloric intake and eat a balanced diet,” he said.

Toronto’s Gairdner Foundation awards six prizes a year to medical scientists around the world for their achievements. Friedman is a professor at the Rockefeller University in New York City and director of the university’s human genetics centre.

In 1994, he discovered the hormone leptin, which he says regulates a person’s body weight and lack of it is the key factor in obesity.

“Just about everyone has a firmly held set of beliefs about what causes (obesity),” he said in an interview before the lecture, a point he repeated to a medically oriented audience of about 300 people. “I think the commonly held view is that this is a problem of willpower (eating too much) and the environment (the modern sedentary lifestyle), or a combination of the two.”

Two problems stem from that sort of thinking, he said: biological factors go ignored in the discussion and obese people get blamed for being obese. Willpower cannot enable a person to stop overeating anymore than willpower can enable a person to stop breathing, Friedman said.

“I think at a minimum, what we should be debating is the relative role of biology versus willpower and environment,” he said. Finegood said fad diets might not work but “a behaviour change for life leads you in the right direction.”