Are you sweeter or fatter?
British scientists have found a "fatty food gene" in human DNA
Some people do not like sweet food, but at the same time prefer to eat fatty foods for the reason that their DNA contains a mutation in the MC4R gene that controls food preferences, according to an article published in the journal Nature Communications (van der Klaauw et al., Divergent effects of central melanocortin signaling on fat and sucrose preference in humans).
"When food is scarce, we need energy that we could store and use when we need it – every gram of fat, for example, gives us twice as many calories as proteins or carbohydrates, and it is easily stored in the body. Therefore, the presence of a chain of neurons in the brain that tells you to eat more fat and less sugar, which is poorly stored in the body, helped our ancestors to fight hunger," Sadaf Farooqi from the University of Cambridge says (in a press release Chicken korma, Eton mess and a genetic variant provide clues to our food choices – VM).
Faruqi and her colleagues discovered the first gene associated with human food preferences and studied the chains of neurons that use them in their work, observing how several dozen volunteers ate special versions of cavourma, an Indian chicken and curry dish that scientists prepared for them.
Geneticists gave their wards, among whom there were both very thin and very fat people, the opportunity to try chicken from three different dishes. The cavourma in all three plates looked the same and did not differ in taste, however, each version of the dish contained different amounts of fat – from 20% to 60%. After the volunteers tried all versions of the chicken, the scientists allowed them to eat any amount of cavour from all three plates.
After that, the scientists offered the participants to eat a traditional English dessert of whipped cream, strawberries and meringue. As in the previous case, the dessert portions did not differ in taste and appearance, but they contained different amounts of sugar – from 7% to 21%.
Comparing the choices of the participants in both cases and analyzing their DNA, British scientists found that among them there was a small group of people who were united by strange taste preferences. They all chose and ate exceptionally fatty chicken in large quantities, but for some reason they chose the most unsweetened dessert and ate it less than all the other participants.
A comparison of their DNA showed that the reason for this was a mutation in the MC4R gene, which contains instructions for assembling the MC4R receptor of the same name, which, as previously thought, controls eating behavior and metabolism. Mutations in this gene are often found among people suffering from obesity.
According to Faruki and her colleagues, in fact, this gene is responsible for choosing between sweet and fatty foods, and a breakdown in it leads to the fact that a person always begins to prefer fatty foods and avoid sweets.
According to scientists, such a strange preference is a kind of ancient evolutionary program that helped our ancestors to survive in conditions of food shortage, pushing them to eat high-calorie fatty foods rather than sweet fruits. The presence of a link between obesity and MC4R today suggests that today this evolutionary adaptation, on the contrary, harms human health, and does not help him to survive.
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05.10.2016