Has your ‘apple-shaped’ gene given you a big belly?

IF you can’t get rid of your pot belly no matter what you do, maybe you can blame your Plexin D1 gene.

Scientists believe the gene tells fat to gather around the middle, rather than the bottom and thighs.

In other words, it influences whether someone is an ‘apple’, with a big tummy, or a ‘pear’, who widens out below the waist.

Its discovery raises the possibility of pills to stop fat from being stored around the waist – meaning an end to pot bellies and muffin tops. And the benefits wouldn’t just be cosmetic.

The discovery of the apple-shaped gene is important because being an apple is worse for your health than being a pear.

Unlike the fat that pads out pear-shapes, belly fat wraps around the body’s vital organs and produces hormones and other chemicals that tamper with blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. As a result it raises the risk of a host of health problems including heart disease, diabetes and strokes.

To get to the bottom of how fat is stored, researchers at Duke University in North Carolina studied zebra fish – tiny tropical fish whose transparent bodies make it possible to see their inner workings.

Some of the fish carried the Plexin D1 gene and others did not.

Using a dye that turned fat cells fluorescent, the scientists showed that fish without the Plexin D1 gene stored less fat around their abdomen than usual. Instead the fat settled in more of a pear-shaped pattern, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

The fish without the apple-shape gene were also better at processing sugar – which would cut the odds of developing diabetes.

With the gene thought to have a similar role in humans, the groundbreaking research paves the way for a drug that could one day stop us from developing harmful belly fat.