apparently tubbiness is ginetic now ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6725107.stm

Scientists working in Germany and the US say they have found a "fidget" molecule and if you have it in your genes you are less likely to be fat.

Mice with the molecule are more likely to be primed athletic beasts, while those without laze around getting fat.

It is the second time in recent months scientists have claimed to have located genetic material linked to body weight.

Scientists in Britain said they had found a separate gene, dubbed the fat gene, linked directly to obesity.

re you the type of person who is constantly fidgeting - playing with pencils and pieces of paper, your legs jumping around under the office desk as you type?

If you are there is a chance fidgeting may be in your genes - and the good news is that you are less likely to be fat, according to the new research.

The scientists found a slice of their genome they say accounts for the propensity to shuffle and shift.

The researchers say humans have the same genetic switch shown in the mouse that pre-disposes some to fidgeting.

Lead researcher Prof Mathias Treier says those who do fidget are getting valuable daily exercise even without knowing it.

"We're spending energy by doing that - and this is of course one of the key factors in energy balance," he says.

"Clearly people who have the more fidgeting phenotype are more protected against diet-induced obesity, for example, than people who are more calm."






... looks like all the nuns in school who used to belt you with rulers and tell you to sit still were wrong.

yes I've just noticed genetic is spelled wrong ...
 
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They're discovering "genes" for everything nowadays, with nobody pointing out that that isn't really how genes work except for a very few exceptions.

"It's the 'your-left-eye-tooth-will-start-to-decay-when-you-hit-32-years-old gene'" announced the scientist, breathlessly...
 
As part of a team. More often than not it's a bunch of genes doing their thing in the same place at the same time that makes stuff happen. Each diploid cell in your body has the whole DNA shebang. Every single gene, present and correct. They're not all switched on at the same time, or we'd be very strange creatures indeed. To say that a single gene makes you tubby (or gay or vegetarian or Chinese or depressive) is just plain silly: at this stage there are plenty of "single" tubby genes out there.

It's just the way the concept is reported in the media that's annoying. The "man in the street" concept of a single gene with a single responsibility for a single aspect of your life. Pish posh.
 
As part of a team. More often than not it's a bunch of genes doing their thing in the same place at the same time that makes stuff happen. Each diploid cell in your body have the whole DNA shebang. Every single gene, present and correct. They're not all switched on at the same time, or we'd be very strange creatures indeed. To say that a single gene makes you tubby is just plain silly, though at this stage there are plenty of "single" tubby genes out there.

It's just the way the concept is reported in the media that's annoying. The "man in the street" concept of a single gene with a single responsibility for a single aspect of your life. Pish posh.

it managed to keep me sufficiently misinformed until recently.

thanks.
 
scientists and their "studies"...

casual observation would tell you that people who are constantly active will be less prone to being chubby that those who do very little. As for it being genetic, possibly but that doesn't mean you can't choose to defy your genes. people are forever changing themselves, call it reactive evolution or something... for example, instrument players, say guitar and piano players will tend to have slender digits and greater dexterity… athletes will tend to hone their bodies to whatever competitive arena they are involved in. many of these characteristics will be passed on to the next generation where they'll either be lost or developed further

While I know that there are many genuine medical conditions, I think people are searching for a quantifiable 3rd party cause for anything that may be wrong with them… It might sound unsympathetic but ADD and ADHD wreck my buzz, I'm more inclined to think of it as kids being kids… some of them will be all quiet and normal and stuff… others will be devil incarnates! Back in the day, parents would have prescribed a few smacks and a cheap and efficient solution and while I couldn't support giving a child a slap, all they really lack is a little discipline… there are so many ways to resolve that but people, being kinda lazy, are almost as happy to justify a situation via a "certified" medical cause…

Rant over… bottom line, with the exception of serious illness, we can all choose to make ourselves different to what our genetic disposition has in mind
 
guitar and piano players will tend to have slender digits and greater dexterity… athletes will tend to hone their bodies to whatever competitive arena they are involved in. many of these characteristics will be passed on to the next generation where they'll either be lost or developed further.


This particular school of thought is called Lamarckism and was discredited fairly early on in the last century. Those are all acquired characteristics, not selected or evolved ones.

we can all choose to make ourselves different to what our genetic disposition has in mind

Not especially, no. We can work to minimize or enhance whatever predispositions we may have but your genes are your genes. They stay pretty much the same from the moment the sperm hits the egg until they break down after death and we can't "work" to change them. Sometimes, they get changed for us by a stray belt of radiation and we get cancer, but that's ok now because Dragnet can cure it.

Every time a "cosmic ray" (or anything else sufficiently small and fast and powerful) hits you it's like as not to tear chunks out of your genome in some cell on the way through your body. We have vast tracts of "empty" DNA which serves as a buffer. Odds are it'll take the blow and leave the coding DNA intact to do all the things it has to do.

Your second paragraph is dead on though, in my opinion.
 
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