The festive pounds are not only deposited on our hips, but also on our DNA. This is the result of a large international study led by the Helmholtz Munich - German Research Centre for Environmental Health. It shows that an increased body mass index (BMI) leads to epigenetic changes at almost 200 locations in the genetic material.
While our genes hardly change over the course of our lives, our lifestyle can have a direct influence on their environment. Scientists refer to this as the epigenome (Greek epi: on, at, by), i.e. everything that happens on and around the genes. To date, there has been little research into how the epigenome changes as a result of obesity. "With an estimated one and a half billion overweight people worldwide, this question is highly relevant," says lead author of the study Dr Simone Wahl from the Department of Molecular Epidemiology (AME) at the Helmholtz Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health. "Especially when we know that obesity can lead to secondary symptoms such as diabetes, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases."
World's largest study on BMI and epigenetics
The international team of researchers led by Dr Christian Gieger and Dr Harald Grallert from the Helmholtz Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health examined possible links between body mass index (BMI) and epigenetic changes in the world's largest study on this topic to date. The scientists analysed the blood samples of over 10,000 women and men from Europe. These samples came from the biobank of the Augsburg KORA study, the London LOLIPOP study and the EPICOR study, among others. Investigations and long-term observations indicated that the majority of the changes were a consequence of obesity and not its cause.
"Our results provide new insights into which signalling pathways are influenced by obesity," says Christian Gieger, Head of the Biobank of the Helmholtz Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health (HMGU Biobank). "We hope that this will lead to new strategies for predicting and ideally preventing type 2 diabetes and other consequences of obesity." In future, the researchers also want to investigate how the epigenetic changes affect the activity of the underlying genes in detail.
Source: Helmholtz Munich - German Research Center for Environmental Health, partner of the Joint Biobank Munich
Scientific publication
Wahl, S. et al. (2016): Epigenome-wide association study of body mass index, and the adverse outcomes of adiposity. Nature, doi:10.1038/nature20784