The Genetic Architecture of Thinness

Angela

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It's time to stop the fat shaming. A good part of all this, thinness and its opposite, extreme obesity, is genetics, as should have been obvious.

Yes, people have atrocious diets, especially in some countries, and eat too much for their level of activity, but some individuals, and more in some countries than in others, can eat anything they want and never get fat, and some can't be really thin unless they exercise inhuman restraint and eat almost nothing.

It's not fair, but there it is...

https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007603

"Obesity-associated disorders are amongst the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Most genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have focused on body mass index (BMI = weight in Kg divided by height squared (m2)) and obesity, but to date no genetic association study testing thin and healthy individuals has been performed. In this study, we recruited a first of its kind cohort of 1,471 clinically ascertained thin and healthy individuals and contrasted the genetic architecture of the trait with that of severe early onset obesity. We show that thinness, like obesity, is a heritable trait with a polygenic component. In a GWAS of persistent healthy thinness vs. severe obesity with a total sample size of 2,927, we are able to find evidence of association in loci that have only been recently discovered using large cohorts with >40,000 individuals. We also find a novel BMI-associated locus at PKHD1 in UK Biobank highlighted by our association study. This work illustrates the value and increased power brought upon by using clinically ascertained extremes to study complex traits and provides a valuable resource on which to study resistance to obesity in an increasingly obesogenic environment."

I think some of these genes are already known: 23andme tests for some of them.
 
Yes, there is no doubt that BMI has a large heritable component. Actually 23andme tests for all of these genes, because the study you link is based on genotyping microarray - and 23andmes products is a very similar genotyping microarray. They just don't calculate it and report it to you. So you "just" need to download your data and do the similar calculations - calculate the polygenic component as they talk of. Not easy to do yourself though, lots of math. The only third party app that I know of which provides polygenic scores is impute.me and I'm not sure they implemented this study yet. I think there were some similar studies last year though, less marketed but essentially same conclusions. They are probably labelled obesity instead of thinness.
 
It's time to stop the fat shaming. A good part of all this, thinness and its opposite, extreme obesity, is genetics, as should have been obvious.
Very true that is genetics,i am slim and tall,eat almost everything and was never on any diet,i know other relatives from my family or people around that eat much less but are much more fat,even if they are on diet or avoid certain things from meals.
 
Yes, there is no doubt that BMI has a large heritable component. Actually 23andme tests for all of these genes, because the study you link is based on genotyping microarray - and 23andmes products is a very similar genotyping microarray. They just don't calculate it and report it to you. So you "just" need to download your data and do the similar calculations - calculate the polygenic component as they talk of. Not easy to do yourself though, lots of math. The only third party app that I know of which provides polygenic scores is impute.me and I'm not sure they implemented this study yet. I think there were some similar studies last year though, less marketed but essentially same conclusions. They are probably labelled obesity instead of thinness.

Geneplaza tests for it and gives a prediction, placing you on a graph.
 
:disappointed::unsure:
Fat_lady_of_malta.jpg
 
Well, having a pregnancy a year from early adolescence until you either die or go through menopause is usually going to have an effect unless you're in the fortunate minority way on the left side of the graph.

My mother only had two children, but each time she didn't show until five months, gained only about 16-18 pounds total, and was thinner after delivery than she was before it. When she died in her sixties she was 5'6" and only weighed 120 pounds.

I do have to watch a little bit more, or maybe she just didn't eat any junk food, but I'm way lighter than the average. When I worked for my uncle as a waitress during the summers to earn money for college I weighed exactly that and at precisely that height. After six weeks of being on my feet for six hours a day I was down to 109 pounds and still losing. His solution, because he was afraid my mother would yell at him :), was to make me eat sizzling steak or veal parmigiana, gnocchi, salad smothered in oil and garlic bread every night when the staff had their dinner. It was like he was stuffing me for slaughter. The other staff people weren't happy about it, but it was good for me. :) Still, I only got back up to 115, and it's not as if I was training for marathons.

My brother, who didn't get our gene, once told me it's probably not adaptive. If people are always living with food scarcity, it's much better if they can keep fat on their bodies from very little food. We would have been among the first to die.

Also, these statues spring from artistic choice. These people worshiped fertility, and the bodies of those who had been constantly fertile. I think it's gross myself, but different eras have different standards.

Also, not all fertility goddesses looked like that. I think Ashtarte shows you can be thin and curvy at the same time. Maybe the WHG ran more to fat?

Queen-of-Night-Relief.jpg
 
The staff are fake and gutless to take her money and not say anything to her. I would have kicked her ass off the threadmill and pulled her out of the gym. Just ****en unbelieveable... that is not fulfilling their jobs as "fitness instructors".
 

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