Obesity has been a reoccurring issue in our world, especially in the United States, where almost 1 in 3 adults are determined as clinically obese. Obesity can be apparent from the earliest stages of life, even though it is more of a common theme with aging adults that are too busy with work and other obligations to work out and plan healthy meals. Many researchers are trying to comprehend the reasons for obesity, including genetic inheritance. This is important because many common health problems, including hypertension, coronary heart disease, and type II diabetes. These problems can eventually surface without proper diet, or in some cases it’s almost guaranteed to happen, which is a concern to many Americans especially.

This particular article will take a look into obesity more from the genetics perspective.

When obesity is used for genetic research purposes, some phenotypic traits that are looked at include BMI, caloric intake, skinfold thickness. Researchers even draw attention to the molecular level of phenotypes, such as hormone levels (blood tests), transcription levels (measuring RNA levels), and also metabolic profiling. Some of more than unlikely heard of tests exist, they just are not as prominent due to the costs of running the tests. There have already been genes discovered that account for being overweight and being obese, such as the ACDC, known as the adipocyte gene. This particular gene controls the BMI and waist circumference. There are many others and there are even specific chromosomes that carry replicated obesity-related phenotypes, obesity-phenotype cohorts, and extreme-obesity phenotypes. Each of these three types can be located on chromosome 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, and even on the X-chromosome.

Even with these discovered genes, there is much regarding the characteristics of these chromosomes that require more testing and analysis. It was also mentioned in an article how more specific testing on phenotypes of large sample sets of obese children. Hopefully some of the initial findings will help interest other researchers into this particular area of the genetic field.

Additional aspects of the body have been researched, including key periphery signals. Some of these signals include leptin, ghrelin, and insulin, which could be linked to obesity. Some researchers have suggested that we focus our attention to the CNS activity, or central nervous system. It is insinuated that there should be drugs or a new invention made to control and help increase CNS sensitivity to adiposity signals. There are already a couple of agonists and antagonists that exist and are being manipulated to help block certain signals contributing to obesity. Overall, many experiments associated to signaling appear to be new and unfinished, although there have already been related treatments for causes from obesity, such as hypertension. There seems to be hope for some type of obesity treatment, but it is clear that much research has only begun and is unfinished.

There are a lot more factors that contribute to obesity, other than a lack of physical activity and consuming unhealthy foods. Plenty more research is necessary for the development of future drugs and treatments for obesity. It is only a matter of time, but until then obesity rates are climbing and health problems are not going to disappear on their own.