Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, a member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, speaks with NPR’s Richard Harris about his work on an experimental genetic scan that could identify people who are likely to become severely overweight. “This work hopefully will destigmatize obesity and make it very similar to every other disease, which is a combination of both lifestyle and genetics,” said Kathiresan.
STAT reporter Meghana Keshavan speaks with Prof. Guoping Feng about his new research that shows glial cells “very actively participate in direct neuronal function — particularly in the brain areas that control appetite, energy and metabolism.” The findings could help spur the development of weight loss medications.
Lloyd Mallinson reports for Boston.com that researchers from MIT and Harvard have discovered the link between obesity and genetics. “The uncovered cellular circuits may allow us to dial a metabolic master switch for both risk and non-risk individuals, as a means to counter environmental, lifestyle, or genetic contributors to obesity,” explains Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Prof. Manolis Kellis speaks with BBC reporter Andrew Peach about the discovery of a genetic “master switch” inside fat cells. This switch “decides whether every time we have a meal the excess calories will be stored as fat or whether they will actually be burned away as heat,” explains Kellis.
Prof. Manolis Kellis and his colleagues have discovered a metabolic switch linked to obesity, reports Chukwuma Muanya for The Guardian. “Obesity has traditionally been seen as the result of an imbalance between the amount of food we eat and how much we exercise, but this view ignores the contribution of genetics to each individual’s metabolism,” explains Kellis.
“Researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have analysed the genetics behind obesity,” writes Natasha Hinde for The Huffington Post. “They discovered a new pathway that controls human metabolism by prompting fat cells to store fat or burn it away.”
Andy Coghlan reports for New Scientist that MIT researchers have found a gene that determines whether fat cells store or burn energy. “You could say we’ve found fat cells’ radiator, and how to turn it up or down,” says Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Alice Park reports for TIME that researchers from MIT and Harvard have identified a pathway that controls how much fat cells burn or store. “What these results say is that we can reprogram all the major fat stores in humans by intervening in this particular pathway,” explains Prof. Manolis Kellis.
Researchers from MIT and Harvard have discovered how the key gene linked to obesity makes people fat, reports the Associated Press. The study revealed that “a faulty version of the gene causes energy from food to be stored as fat rather than burned.”