Born too soon?

Lookee here! Obesity Gene discovered! Read the article. I fervently wish there were a test for us lay people - I have a strong suspicion I may carry this mutation. It would at least bring peace to many to have an explanation, although treatment based on this discovery is probably too far in the future for me to end up benefiting...

I don't know.. I don't think I'd want to know if I had a mutation that caused me to be obese.  I think that would just make me feel like it was hopeless and I shouldn't even try to be a normal weight.  Why bother, right?  It's in my genes.  

I'd rather go on believing that my weight is something I have control over.  

Yes, I would like to have an explanation that brings peace for myself and a medically based explanation that would replace family's thinking that it was some sort of moral failure on my part.  (Full disclosure, I know i am responsible for what I eat, no matter my genetics/metabolic issues.)  

I feel so different since the sleeve that I can't help but think that is some sort of pharmacologic target there that could be utilized so we didn't have to resort to surgery. 

I sit thru a fair amount of medical lectures that touch on obesity.  I find some peace when these experts comment that current knowledge falls far short of understanding the whys and mechanisms that lead to obesity.  Many also emphasize that lack of will power is not the underlying problem. 

Thanks for the link! Interesting stuff even if we may not directly benefit. 

I really believe my obesity is behavioral not genes.  I was always thin....then I started to eat too much and not being active enough.  Although, many of my family members are overweight.  They are weight for the same reasons as I was.  My daughter, is a vegetarian and an avid runner, she is thin.  I think with my family it's lifestyle and maybe with a lot of families.  

I do have addiction issues that run in my family...alcohol and drugs.  I am thinking that the same family predominance to substance abuse might be an underlying factor in my food addiction.  I'm just addicted food not booze and drugs.   

Oh, Crystal your weight issue might be behavioral . . . BUT at many of my doctor's WLS seminars he says that there are at least 17 hormones that people may carry a hormone that causes obesity. Here are some of the articles that explains it. obesity genehormones

http://www.news-medical.net/health/Obesity-and-Hormones.aspx http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/16/science/la-sci-sn-obesity-gene-ghrelin-20130716

http://phys.org/news/2008-07-gene-hormones-obesity.html

While I know you as an IL board member that is very disciplined I really have to disagree with you. I have family members as does Dave that have avid healthy lifestyles but battle weight. Both Dave's and my family members have thin and vey heavy people in them. My mom ate and lived a very healthy life style but battled times of gaining weight and it is not because she ate out of control - the weight just pounded on her for no reason. She had so much discipline with eating healthy that it would make your head spin.  Some in my family are very thin. So, I do not think it is lifestyle as some of them do not even know how to consume a proper diet - are thin and then there are others tha****ch all that goes into their mouth and gain weight left and right. We both have morbidly obese/thin family members with healthy lifestyles. Dave's mom was stick thin until she hit menopause. Her dad and mother both battled obesity and they were farmers that did manual labor day to night.

I think your daughter is maintaining her weight because of discipline (she got it from her mom) - not because she is a vegetarian and a runner. A vegetarian can drink away their calories in sugary intake. Family baggage has a lot to do with improper calorie intake but I strongly believe it is not the root cause to obesity.

Not everyone that has cancer gene gets cancer. 

Gene for obesity may predispose us to obesity, but it does not makes us obese.  It probably will take them another century or 2 to discover how that gene contributes to obesity. 

Is it hormonal imbalances? Insulin resitance? Or something completely different... 

Completely valid point, but...another century or two? I'm hoping some kind of actionable progress can be made within the next 10-15...even so, it will come too late to be of benefit to me...

Such great science is happening right now that hopefully will help treat and prevent obesity in the future. It hopefully will also shut up the jackholes that say things like "all you need to do is push away from the table and jog more." Anyone who battles obesity personally knows it's not that easy. It it were, I doubt 2/3 of all Americans would be affected. Obesity has complex multifactorial causes and may require behavioral, nutritional, pharmaceutical, psychosocial, surgical treatments or a combination of treatments, it's not one treatment fits all disease and it's chronic so... reassessment from time to time and adjustments in treatment. NOW to get insurance to cover all treatments.