Sugar-craving gene helps lower body fat

A common version of a gene that makes you eat more sugar also plays a role in reducing body fat, surprised researchers report.

According to UPI, Study first author Timothy Frayling, a molecular geneticist at University of Exeter Medical School in England, said, “This goes against the current perception that eating sugar is bad for health.”

The gene may reduce body fat because the same ‘A’ version of the FGF21 gene also results in lower protein and fat consumption.

But the discovery does comes with a downside.

Frayling said, “Whilst this version of the gene lowers body fat.

“It also redistributes fat to the upper body, where it’s more likely to cause harm, including higher blood pressure.”

Researchers analyzed data from 450,000 people in the UK Biobank — which includes biological samples from hundreds of thousands of people — to examine links between different versions of the FGF21 gene, diet, body fat and blood pressure.

The analysis found that the ‘A’ version of the gene was associated with higher sugar and alcohol consumption, a lower percentage of total body fat, higher blood pressure and a higher waist-to-hip ratio.

The findings were published April 10 in the journal Cell Reports.

Study coauthor Niels Grarup, an associate professor of metabolic genetics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, said, “Because this study has so many people in it, it gave us enough individuals to be confident in the associations we were seeing.”

The ‘A’ version of the FGF21 gene is common: About 20 percent of people in Europe have the maximum two copies of it, the researchers said.

Studying different variants of FGF21 could help uncover some of the genetic and biological causes of obesity, according to the researchers.