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Icelanders find one gene makes you fat...or thin
London, Oct 01: Icelandic researchers say they have found a gene that in different versions determines whether people are predisposed to being obese or thin.
London, Oct 01: Icelandic researchers say they have found a gene that in different versions determines whether people are predisposed to being obese or thin.
Scientists have long suspected a genetic link in determining how our bodies regulate weight. Now Icelandic biotechnology company deCODE genetics says it has isolated a specific gene which, in different forms, tends to make us either overweight or underweight.
The finding is the result of analysis of DNA from more than 1,000 Icelandic women.
"Obesity and thinness are two sides of the same coin," said deCODE Chief Executive Officer Kari Stefansson on Tuesday. "This is an important step towards developing new drugs that can treat obesity, perhaps by utilising the body's own mechanisms for promoting and maintaining thinness." The Reykjavik-based company, which signed an obesity drug research deal worth up to 55 million pounds with Merck last year, will receive an unspecified milestone payment from the US pharmaceuticals giant for the discovery.
Set up in 1996, deCODE is trawling Iceland's gene pool -- which has changed little since the Vikings arrived in the ninth and 10th centuries -- to tease out links between genes and common diseases.
Scientists have long suspected a genetic link in determining how our bodies regulate weight. Now Icelandic biotechnology company deCODE genetics says it has isolated a specific gene which, in different forms, tends to make us either overweight or underweight.
The finding is the result of analysis of DNA from more than 1,000 Icelandic women.
"Obesity and thinness are two sides of the same coin," said deCODE Chief Executive Officer Kari Stefansson on Tuesday. "This is an important step towards developing new drugs that can treat obesity, perhaps by utilising the body's own mechanisms for promoting and maintaining thinness." The Reykjavik-based company, which signed an obesity drug research deal worth up to 55 million pounds with Merck last year, will receive an unspecified milestone payment from the US pharmaceuticals giant for the discovery.
Set up in 1996, deCODE is trawling Iceland's gene pool -- which has changed little since the Vikings arrived in the ninth and 10th centuries -- to tease out links between genes and common diseases.