" They found the gene, called FTO, by studying nearly 39,000 white Europeans in a finding they hope can lead to new ways to fight this growing global health problem."

" British researchers, writing in the journal Science on Thursday, said the presence of a version of FTO increased a person's risk for obesity, and it was very common in the people studied -- 63 percent had one or two copies of it."

" Genetics has long been assumed to play a role in making some people fatter than others, and previous research had tentatively implicated specific genes."

" However, the researchers emphasized, genetics alone cannot fully account for a worldwide surge in obesity in recent decades that experts attribute to multitudes of people eating too much of the wrong foods and getting too little exercise."

" Obesity is recognized as a growing public health problem worldwide. Obese people are at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and some cancers."

" The researchers said that while improving one's lifestyle is still the key to reducing the obesity epidemic, their findings explain why some people will find it harder to change their weight than others because of their genes."

" Researchers led by Andrew Hattersley of the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter and Plymouth and Mark McCarthy of the University of Oxford examined the genetics of nearly 39,000 children and adults from Britain, Finland and Italy."

" They found 47 percent had one copy of the variant of the FTO gene and 16 percent had two copies."

" "What this study has identified is a genetic variant which is involved in the regulation of weight," Hattersley said in a conference call with reporters. "And the critical role that it plays is in predisposing how much fat people have.""

" "Although this is the first gene that's been found that plays this kind of role," McCarthy said, "this isn't the whole story.""

" McCarthy said while extra body fat can be attributed to the presence the gene variant, this gene alone
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