"The researchers have identified a type of genetic variation that gives a child a 70 per cent higher risk of developing obesity compared to a child who has not inherited the genetic variant."

"Although the scientists cannot explain how the gene involved makes obesity more likely, they believe the discovery will start a race to find the fundamental reasons why some people are born with a predisposition to being fat."

"Professor Andrew Hattersley from the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter said: "As a nation, we are eating more and doing less exercise and so the average weight is increasing but, within the population, some people seem to put on more weight than others," said"

""Our findings suggest a possible answer to someone who might ask, 'I eat the same and do as much exercise as my friend next door, so why am I fatter?' There's clearly a component to obesity that is genetic," Professor Hattersley said."

"Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in the developed world because of the combination of high-calorie food and lack of exercise. In Britain, more than 20 per cent of the population is clinically obese, and half of men and a third of women are classified as overweight."

"The study investigated variations in the DNA of a gene known as FTO - short for "fatso" - which occurs in patients with type-2 diabetes. More than 2,000 diabetes patients and 3,000 healthy "controls" took part in the study, published in the journal Science."

"The scientists from the Universities of Exeter, Plymouth and Oxford searched the genomes of the diabetes patients and found a strong association between the disease and a certain variant of the FTO gene."

"When the scientists expanded the study to look at
... read the whole article