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Obesity gene in children associated with reaction to TV food advertisements
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Children with the variant of the FTO gene associated with fat mass and obesity who were exposed to television food advertisements consumed more calories of recently advertised foods vs. children with obesity who did not have the gene, according to findings published in the International Journal of Obesity.
“While the biological mechanism is yet unknown, pediatric studies suggest that FTO may decrease satiety responsiveness and lead to excess consumption,” Diane Gilbert-Diamond, ScD, of the department of epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and colleagues wrote. “This past research motivated our hypothesis that children with the FTO rs9939609 high-risk allele would have heightened susceptibility to excess consumption after viewing food ads.”
Gilbert-Diamond and colleagues analyzed data from 172 healthy children aged 9 or 10 years recruited between July 2013 and February 2015 (50% boys; 86% white; 23% with overweight or obesity). One caregiver accompanied each child; participants were told the study focused on how children process visual media. Researchers provided children with a lunch between 1,153 kcal and 1,183 kcal. After lunch, children rated their satiety with a 5-point Likert scale; those who reported they were not full were excluded from analysis.
After lunch, children viewed a 34-minute television show that included 7.7 minutes of either food or toy ads. Researchers provided children with four snack foods to consume during the show — gummy candy, cookies, chocolate and cheese puffs. Gummy candy was the only snack item advertised during the program. Researchers measured FTO rs9939609 gene variant frequencies, recorded height and weight, and calculated estimated daily energy requirement.
During the television program, children consumed an additional 482 kcal on average. However, children exposed to food ads consumed 44 additional calories of gummy candy vs. children exposed to toy ads. Researchers did not observe an effect on total consumption or on foods not advertised.
Results persisted after adjustment for estimated energy requirement and parental eating restriction with no observed effect on total consumption or non-advertised foods.
Researchers observed an interaction between the FTO rs9939609 genotype and food ad exposure with advertised food consumption (P = .02); consumption increased linearly with each additional risk allele.
“FTO rs9939609 may regulate dopamine (D2)-dependent reward learning, so the increased responsiveness to food cues may be a result of heightened prior conditioning,” the researchers wrote. “We hypothesize that genetic differences in the neural reward response to food cues underlie our observed behavior findings; however, further research is needed to better understand genetic differences in the effect of food cues on overconsumption.” – by Regina Schaffer
Disclosure: This study was supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
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