This new discovery could be tremendously important in heading off obesity later in life – when it’s harder to control and treat. High risk of adult obesity can be spotted in kids as young as 5 years old!
The World Obesity Federation expects more than half the global population to become overweight or obese by 2035…
Early detection, early treatment
However, treatment strategies such as lifestyle change, surgery and medications are not universally available or effective. It’s so much easier to institute early childhood interventions before lifelong eating habits consolidate and symptoms of the disease appear.
What they did
By drawing on genetic data from over five million people, international researchers have created a measure called a polygenic risk score (PGS) that is reliably associated with adulthood obesity and shows consistent and indicative patterns in early childhood. The findings could help to identify children and adolescents at higher genetic risk of developing obesity in later life – subjects who could benefit from targeted preventative strategies, such as lifestyle interventions, at a younger age.
“What makes the score so powerful is the consistency of associations between the genetic score and body mass index before the age of five and through to adulthood – timing that starts well before other risk factors start to shape their weight later in childhood,” said Assistant Professor Roelof Smit at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the research published in the journal Nature Medicine.
“Intervening at this point could theoretically make a huge impact.”
What they found
PGS is like a calculator that combines the effects of the different risk variants that a person carries and provides an overall score. The PGS was able to explain almost a fifth (17 percent) of a person’s variation in body mass index – much higher than in previous studies.
Researchers found that their new PGS system was twice as effective as the previous best method at predicting a person’s risk of developing obesity.
The takeaway
If kids as young as pre-schoolers could be identified as likely to develop obesity later in life, it could save healthcare systems, collectively, trillions of dollars over their lifetimes by helping those individuals avoid developing chronic disease and require lifelong treatment.
Not to mention how much better their overall health and well being could be.
My take
Looking at the big picture on new discoveries coming out of the world’s research machine over the past few months – especially the past few weeks – I’m greatly encouraged that we can stil get ahead of the most serous chronic disease and global ‘epidemic’ diseases before we have to throw everything we have behind dealing with the inevitable flood of issues associated with full-blown climate change!
~ Maggie J.