According to the team of researchers, ‘Obesity develops as a result of altered energy homeostasis favouring fat storage.’ This means that you become obese when your food-regulating and energy-producing internal processes go wrong, and the balance or homeostasis tips towards excessively storing fat. This is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes and other health problems, along with insulin resistance, which occurs when body uses insulin less effectively than normal. You need insulin to control the amount of sugar in your body, so when this goes wrong your wellness is exposed to raised levels of blood sugar and fats.
These conditions occur due to lifestyle factors, but also specific genes make people more likely to develop insulin resistance and diabetes. For example, it was discovered in 2010 that a common variant of the FTO gene caused over a third of Americans to gain weight, which put them at risk for obesity, as well as a loss of brain tissue. This meant that they were more likely at risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s later in life.
In this study, the researchers discovered that when you knock out the TRIP-Br2 gene in mice, which is the gene responsible for fat regulation and energy use, it reverses fat storage and raises energy expenditure. This meant that the mice were prevented from becoming obese and developing insulin resistance. Co-author Cristina Mallol, a researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain, said in a statement to the press, ‘The protection of mice with no expression of the gene TRIP-Br2, and its selective elevation in the visceral fat of humans point the way to a future gene therapy to counteract obesity, insulin resistance and excess lipids in the blood’.