Scientists have uncovered the link between genes and favorite food
Geneticists from Spain have found that mutations in certain genes determine how much a person likes different types of food – for example, chocolate, salt, fatty foods and vegetables. Their findings were presented at the Experimental Biology 2017 conference, currently taking place in Chicago, USA.
"It is extremely difficult for most people to change their eating habits, even if they know that changing their diet is critically important for their health. This is due to the fact that our food preferences and the ability to follow plans affect what we eat and how we follow a diet. For the first time, we tried to find out how genes related to brain function affect the diet of a healthy person," said Silvia Berciano from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain).
The rapid spread of the obesity epidemic around the world forced scientists several years ago to start searching for genes that control human appetite, feelings of hunger and satiety, as well as food preferences. The first such genes were found last year, when British scientists found out that mutations in the MC4R gene can make a person prefer to eat fatty foods, and some versions of the FADS1 and FADS2 genes were associated with adaptability to a vegetarian diet in Hindus and East Asians.
Berziano and her colleagues tried to find similar genes by studying the diets and sets of small mutations in the DNA of about eight hundred men and women of European descent living in Spain. To do this, the scientists collected DNA samples from these volunteers and asked them to fill out a questionnaire in which they had to tell what food they had eaten in recent days and give each dish a rating.
Having collected all these data, scientists compared a set of about one and a half thousand mutations, presumably related to diet, with what the volunteers ate, and found that genes really control a person's food preferences.
For example, different variations in the FTO gene were associated with the amount of vegetables and fiber consumed, and the CREB1 and GABRA2 genes were associated with the ratio to salt and salty foods. The first part of DNA, as scientists previously believed, is responsible for appetite and a tendency to obesity, and CREB1 and GABRA2 are regulators of the speed of reading genes and are responsible for the transmission of signals in the brain.
Drawing by Adriano Kitani
Some other genes have been linked to certain types of foods. In particular, the OXTR gene, associated with the body's response to oxytocin, the hormone of happiness, controlled the love or dislike of chocolate, and the SLC6A2, SLC6A5 genes were associated with vegetable oil and sugar.
Interestingly, many of these gene variants were associated with an increased likelihood of developing obesity, which makes it possible to use lists of such genes of "sweet tooth" or fat lovers in order to help such people fight excess weight or avoid its appearance.
In the near future, scientists plan to check whether these patterns exist among representatives of other races and ethnic groups, and will also try to find other variants of genes associated with food preferences.
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24.04.2017