Could Genetics Merely Provide Patients With Another Excuse For Their Morbid Obesity?

Gastric bypass surgery is a lifesaver for many individuals as the problem of obesity sweeps across the western world but its greatest problem is to be found in the fact that a significant number of individuals either fail to lose a reasonable amount of weight after surgery or go on to put back much of the weight which is lost.

There are of course a variety of reasons for this failure to lose weight or to put on weight again and top of the list in without doubt the fact that far too many people just find it too hard to make the lifestyle changes needed after surgery and eat their way back to obesity. However, scientists have now identified a genetic component which could explain some people's failure to lose weight after gastric bypass surgery.

In a recent study which involved more than seven hundred morbidly obese individuals blood samples were tested for the presence of two single nucleotide polymorphisma (SNPs). In simple terms a SNP is a sequence of human DNA, variations of the pattern in which can indicate how people will develop diseases and also respond to things like vaccines and drugs. Without going into the details of this particular study which are more than a little complicated, the scientists discovered that roughly 20% of the people examined showed a combination of specific SNPs which indicate they are at risk of not simply failing to lose weight after weight loss surgery, but might in fact be at risk of putting on weight.

The problem we are facing today is not chiefly that of finding an answer for those people who are suffering from obesity, but of stopping obesity to start with and this is very much a question of education. There is no question that a minority of people are prone to obesity and genetics and similar factors might well play a part in this. However, the vast majority of the obesity that we these days results from little more than bad eating habits and a failure to take enough exercise.

The true problem however is that when people have reached it is simple human nature to try to find any cause for their excessive weight which removes that guilty feeling which comes from the fact that they may just have caused the problem themselves. Now what better excuse can you hand someone than to say to them that their problem is genetic.

This is not to suggest that research into SNPs is not valid or to say that there is no genetic link to the failure to lose weight or to gain weight after weight loss surgery. The danger however lies in releasing this information too early in the research process and to simply hand people another excuse for not dealing with their obesity at a time when obesity is at epidemic proportions and more importantly is increasingly being found in very young children.

Scientific research is vital and must be given its place in the scheme of things but we need to be careful that it does not sidetrack us from the real need to deal with the problem of obesity by educating people to alter their eating habits and take sufficient exercise.

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