People who have a collection of ‘fat genes’ have to exercise 73 percent more to achieve the same weight loss as someone without a genetic predisposition, a new study suggests.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville found that some people with a high genetic risk for obesity will need to walk about 15,000 steps to lose weight, compared to just under 5,000 for those with low genetic risk.
Even those at moderate risk will have to walk 41 percent more steps than people at low risk. This is based on people not making any changes to their diet.
The researchers said this is the first study of its kind to highlight exact differences in physical activity between people with different genetic predispositions.
“I think it’s intuitive that people who have a higher genetic risk for obesity might need to engage in more physical activity to reduce that risk,” said Dr. Evan Brittain, senior author and professor of cardiovascular medicine.
“But what’s new and important about this study is that we were able to put a number on the amount of activity needed to reduce risk.”
Genetics play a big factor in how you maintain weight.
For their study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the researchers analyzed four years of data from 3,124 fitness trackers, medical records and genetic information from 3,124 participants.
Using previous data on telltale genetic patterns that favor obesity, the researchers classified each person into one of three different groups based on their relative genetic risk.
If participants had certain genes, or reported that their parents had obesity-related problems, such as diabetes, or hypothyroidismwere classified as having a higher genetic risk for obesity.
People at moderate risk might have had some of the genetic components that contribute to obesity, such as individual mutations or a family history of obesity, but lacked others.
Those in the lowest risk group had little or no family history and a lower than average number of mutations associated with obesity.
The authors found that for people with low genetic risk, only 3,660 steps per day were recommended.
For people at moderate genetic risk for obesity, experts recommend about 8,740 steps per day.
The researchers cautioned that the number of steps recommended would vary depending on a person’s body mass index (BMI), with those at the higher end of the scale requiring the most steps.
According to the CDC, approximately 41 percent of American adults are obese. And 400,000 people in the United States die each year from complications caused by this condition, according to research by the mayo clinic.
Previous studies show that up to 80 percent of obesity cases can be explained by a genetic predisposition.
A new study shows up to a 73 percent difference in the amount of physical activity needed to change weight between people with different genetic risks for obesity.
The authors say many of the national recommendations for exercise were not created with obese people in mind.
The results highlight the need for personalized approaches to medicine and exercise, said Douglas Ruderfer, professor of Medicine in the Division of Genetic Medicine at VUMC and co-author of the study.
“Physical activity guidelines do not take individual differences into account.”
Therefore, the researchers suggest that their findings should be used to formulate new guidelines.
“I think an important component of this result is that individuals can be active enough to take into account their genetic background or their genetic risk for obesity, regardless of how high that risk may be,” Ruderfer said.