More than 70 regions of the genome associated with obesity have been discovered by geneticists from King's College London. They talked about this in an article in the magazine Metabolites.

Scientists took blood samples from nearly 9,000 people and analyzed the levels of 722 metabolites that control basic physiological processes. Metabolite levels can be affected by diet, medications, and the gut microbiome. However, how the body breaks down food depends a lot on the person's genetics.

Sequencing the volunteers' genomes as well, the team identified 202 unique genomic regions, the variations of which were associated with the level of 478 different metabolites. These included 74 genomic regions that were not reported in previous works.

"These results have many practical applications," the researchers note. - Human metabolism underlies a large number of different diseases and areas of human health. Our results can be helpful in understanding some diseases. Several of the metabolites we studied are associated with body mass index and may give us insight into obesity. These are just the first steps, but in the future, these results may allow the development of approaches to maintaining a healthy weight, taking into account a person's genetic profile. "

Overweight and obesity kill about 4 million people a year, researchers remind. Better approaches to combating it will save the health and life of many of them.

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