Sweet Drinks Connect with Fat Genes

Epidemiologists from Harvard report in The New England Journal of Medicine that an interaction between genes and dietary habits may be contributing to the obesity epidemic. Data on weight, height, sweetened beverage consumption and obesity-related genes were gathered from nearly 7,000 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and over 4,000 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study in the course of 20 years. People who consumed at least one sugar-sweetened soda daily were more likely to become obese if they also had genes that predisposed them to weight gain.
The researchers also collected similar data from 21,000 volunteers in the Women’s Genome Health Study. Here, too, more obesity genes and higher sugar-sweetened soda consumption dramatically increased the likelihood of obesity. The researchers conclude that people with a genetic predisposition to obesity may be especially susceptible to the dangers of high sugar intake from beverages.
[New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 21, 2012]