Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The biological predisposition to obesity: beyond the thrifty genotype scenario

International Journal of Obesity volume 31, pages 1337–1339 (2007)Cite this article

It is hard to dispute the fact that the prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing around the world and that the obese are becoming more severely obese. However, there are few certainties concerning the true causes of the phenomenon. We often hear that as the human gene pool could not have changed rapidly enough to explain this acute rise in prevalence, the latter is undoubtedly caused by changes in our environment and our way of life. It is not uncommon to read or hear in some quarters that biology has nothing to do with the current epidemic of excess weight. But the converse is also true; there are biologists who hold the view that it is caused by vulnerabilities in our genome. As is generally the case when such diametrically opposed views are upheld, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1

References

  1. Bouchard C, Tremblay A, Despres J-P, Nadeau A, Lupien PJ, Theriault G et al. The response to long-term overfeeding in identical twins. N Engl J Med 1990; 322: 1477–1482.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Bouchard C, Tremblay A, Despres J-P, Theriault G, Nadeau A, Lupien PJ et al. The response to exercise with constant energy intake in identical twins. Obes Res 1994; 2: 400–410.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Hainer V, Stunkard AJ, Kunesova M, Parizkova J, Stich V, Allison DB . Intrapair resemblance in very low calorie diet-induced weight loss in female obese identical twins. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 2000; 24: 1051–1057.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Neel J . Diabetes mellitus: a ‘thrifty’ genotype rendered detrimental by ‘progress’? Am J Hum Genet 1962; 14: 353–362.

    CAS  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Neel JV . The ‘thrifty genotype’ in 1998. Nut Rev 1999; 57: S2–S9.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Speakman JR . Thrifty genes for obesity and the metabolic syndrome – time to call off the search? Diab Vasc Dis Res 2006; 3: 7–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Rankinen T, Zuberi A, Chagnon YC, Weisnagel SJ, Argyropoulos G, Walts B et al. The human obesity gene map: the 2005 update. Obesity (Silver.Spring) 2006; 14: 529–644.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Bouchard C, Rankinen T . Exciting advances and new opportunities. In: Clement K, Sorensen TIA (eds). Genomics of Obesity. Taylor and Francis Group, LLC: New York, in press.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Genomics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    C Bouchard

Authors
  1. C Bouchard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to C Bouchard.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bouchard, C. The biological predisposition to obesity: beyond the thrifty genotype scenario. Int J Obes 31, 1337–1339 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0803610

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0803610

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links