People who are obese and lose weight very often gain it back, which may in part be due to permanent changes in fat cell DNA. This particular discovery could lead to new treatmentsaccording to New Scientist.

As reported, about 85% of people who are obese or overweight and they lose at least one tenth of their body weightthey get it again within a year.

This is partly due to the fact that it is difficult to stick to a low-calorie diet for a long time, although this probably plays a relatively small role, says Laura Catharina Hinte of the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in Switzerland. “It is not possible that all of us lack the will to maintain our weight after a diet.”

Furthermore, studies have shown that the brain interprets a sudden drop in body fat as dangerous and reacts by making the body burn less energy.

To learn more about this process, Hinte and her colleagues analyzed adipose tissue collected from 20 obese people shortly before they underwent bariatric surgery. food and calorie consumption), but also two years later, when they had lost about ¼ of their body weight. They also examined adipose tissue from 18 people of a healthy body weight.

The researchers sequenced a type of genetic molecule called RNA, which codes for proteins, in fat cells. They found that people with obesity had increased or decreased levels of more than 100 RNA molecules compared to people of a healthy weight, differences that remained the same even two years after losing weight.

These changes seem that they cause inflammation and disrupt the way fat cells store and burn fatevidence that increases the risk of future weight gain, reports a member of the team Ferdinand von Meyennealso of the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

To investigate whether these RNA changes might actually lead to new weight gain, the researchers first turned to obese mice and noticed that their cells reacted in exactly the same way. Then, they fed both the obese mice that had lost weight and the normal-weight mice a high-fat diet for a month. The result? The obese mice who had lost weight they gained 14 grams of weighton average, during this time, while the other mice they got just 5 grams.

The results show how changes in RNA linked to obesity can lead to future weight gain, says von Meyenn.

Also, the research team found that molecular marks, or epigenetic features in the DNA of fat cells, were what led to the changes in RNA associated with obesity. These they change the levels of RNA, changing the structure of the DNA that codes for them.