Obese people who claim they have a “slow metabolism” may have a point after scientists discover a gene that for the first time links being overweight with reduced metabolic activity.

Researchers from Cambridge University found that mutations in a gene known as KSR2 reduce the ability of cells to metabolise glucose and fatty acids, which provide energy.

These gene mutations are also more common in people with severe obesity than in the general, non-obese population, they found.

It has long been suggested that some people may be predisposed to obesity because of a “slow metabolism” but this is the first time that scientists have been able to identify a definite genetic basis for such an idea.

“It was something that most of us didn’t quite believe could happen because there wasn’t much evidence for it until now,” said Professor Sadaf  Farooqi of the University of Cambridge.

“Up until now, the genes we have identified that control body weight have largely affected appetite. This gene also increases appetite but it is also causes a slow metabolic rate,” Professor Farooqi said.

“KSR2 is different in that it also plays a role in regulating how energy is used in the body. In the future, modulation of KSR2 may represent a useful therapeutic strategy for obesity and type-2 diabetes,” she said.

Working with Ines Barroso of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, Professor Farooqi sequenced the DNA from over 2,000 patients with severe, early onset obesity, and found that about 2 per cent of them had multiple mutations in the KSR2 gene – more than twice the rate found in non-obese people.

The study, published in the journal Cell, follows earlier work on mice that established the link between the gene and obesity. Mice that lacked the gene became severely overweight.

The KSR2 gene is responsible for some of the “scaffolding” proteins of the cell which play a crucial role in ensuring that signals from hormones such as insulin are correctly processed in the body to regulate how cells grow, divide and use energy.

The scientists found that patients with mutations in the KSR2 gene reported that they had an increased drive to eat when they were children but also a reduced metabolic rate, which meant they were unable to burn off all they energy they consumed.

Low metabolic rate is often linked with an underactive thyroid gland, but in these people their thyroid levels were within normal range, which meant that their metabolic deficit was caused by something else, such as defected KSR2 genes.

“This work adds to a growing body of evidence that genes play a major role in influencing a person’s weight and may be useful for developing new ways to treat people who are heavy and develop diabetes,” Professor Farooqi said.

It is a slow metabolism after all: Scientists discover obesity gene – Science – News – The Independent

Consumer appliances are now becoming activated and “smart.” RFID chips and wireless internet connections enable devices like televisions, refrigerators, printers, and computers to communicate with each other and generally make life easier for us. This comes at a price, however. Your privacy is eliminated.

A detailed multi-dimensional image of our daily lives will be built with this system. Individuals to entire group dynamics will be tracked. It will be unparalleled in history. Everything from daily travel routes to eating habits will be traceable. Every day objects will be transmitting data 24/7.

Now, insurance companies are anticipating this hyper-connected future. Will they spy on your eating habits and hike your health insurance costs?

As Mike Adams reported in March of this year, grocery store loyalty cards are being tracked by insurance companies to deny claims and raise health insurance rates. As the Wall Street Journal reported in early 2013,

Your company already knows whether you’ve been taking your meds, getting your teeth cleaned and going for regular medical checkups. Now some employers or their insurance companies are tracking what staffers eat, where they shop and how much weight they’re putting on — and taking action to keep them in line.

In the November-December issue of The Futurist, Richard Yonck writes, “In a world of total connectivity, the rate at which a household consumes sugar, salt, tobacco, and alcohol would potentially be an open book to insurers seeking to control costs.”

With the internet of things, spying on “unhealthy” habits will be a cinch. Wi-fi enabled refrigerators will read RFID tags on grocery products that are placed your fridge, and in turn send that data to the internet cloud. Are you eating a government approved diet? Taking your meds? If not, you will be paying a price for it in this nightmarish science fiction future that is soon to be science fact.

» Will Insurance Companies Use Smart Appliances to Monitor “Unhealthy” Habits? Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!

One reason the consumers may not have realized that it was a bad deal health-wise was that the public health community was focused not on sugar but on fats — warning Americans against eggs, cheese, cream and meat. In 1977, Sen. George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs issued guidelines urging a major reduction in fats and an increase in complex carbohydrates.Industry responded with an array of low-fat and fat-free products: cake, cookies, bread, ice cream and beverages.

Americans did cut down proportionally on fats but, ironically, they started to get fatter — ” much fatter. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that rates of obesity in children and adults, which had been climbing through the ’70s, started to shoot upward around 1980. For children, obesity tripled from about 5 percent in 1980 to about 15 percent in 2000.

Although Harvard’s Jou noted that there was “no one culprit or explanation” for the startling rise, Gary Taubes, author of “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” emphasizes the effect of the anti-fat campaign. With eggs and bacon off the menu, he argued, many Americans ate more cereal and other foods high in carbohydrates. Furthermore, the new low-fat substitutes were often laden with high-fructose corn syrup and starch. Portion sizes grew.

At the same time, schools all over the country were allowing vending machines into their hallways, and cafeterias were coming to resemble shopping-mall food courts. Part of the reason was financial: They attracted paying students. Fast-food and soda companies also offered funding in exchange for adding their logos to, say, football scoreboards. But such contracts “turned out to be a bargain with the devil,” said Kelly Brownell, a Duke University expert on obesity. Add in the aggressive food advertising on television and online, he said, and kids of the 1980s and ’90s faced a “toxic food environment.”

Behind all the food issues was another threat to fitness: Children were getting less exercise. For reasons including suburban sprawl and safety concerns, fewer students were walking and biking to school. Many schools cut out physical education and reduced recess time. “Atari and Nintendo and the Internet exacerbated that,” Jou said.

By the time first lady Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” campaign in 2010, it was almost impossible for anyone paying attention to be unaware of the crisis. The attention has had some effect, with recent studies showing the first signs of a leveling off of childhood obesity. But the battle is far from over.

How America cultivated a generation of obesity – TwinCities.com