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Midnight Snacker? Blame Your Genes

Thu Apr 21, 2005 7:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Is midnight snacking keeping you up late at night and keeping you off your diet? A faulty gene may be to blame, researchers said on Thursday.

They found that mice with a mutation in a gene called "Clock" controlling circadian rhythms -- a member of a class of genes called clock genes -- develop symptoms similar to those seen in many overweight people, such as diabetes, high cholesterol and a tendency to gain weight.

Their findings, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, suggests that a brain system that controls the cycles of sleep and waking may also help regulate appetite and metabolism.

Dr. Fred Turek and colleagues at Northwestern University in Illinois and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute found mice with a mutant version of the Clock gene tended to overeat, become overweight, and have high levels of blood glucose and cholesterol.

Their mutant mice were more active during times when rodents usually sleep. They had unusual levels of leptin and ghrelin, both hormones involved in appetite.

When fed a normal diet, they gained about as much weight as normal mice fed a high-fat diet. When they got fat-laden food, the mutant mice gained even more weight and showed metabolic irregularities.

"We don't know too much about how clocks control eating and metabolism in normal individuals, but now we have shown that weight gain and abnormalities in metabolism, including diabetes, result if this internal timepiece is malfunctioning," said Dr. Joseph Bass, an assistant professor of medicine and neurobiology at Northwestern.

"The body clock is clearly controlling the elaborate brain signaling system that regulates appetite."

Other studies involving leptin and appetite in mice have not translated directly to humans, but the researchers said the findings were always useful in understanding human disease and biology.

"Is it possible that sleep loss or a change in circadian rhythms might exacerbate problems in regulating appetite?" Bass asked.

"It may be a question of not only how much you eat but what time of day you eat and how that affects the body. Are you eating at a time of day when your system is internally aligned to metabolize the food?"

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

This stupid ass study coupled with the one that came out a couple of days ago (the "it's okay to be overweight" study) tells me that the gov't is trying to keep us fat and sheep like.

maybe they are even planning on fattening us and keeping us tender with inactivity so they can use us as a food source.

I love a good conspiricy...trust no one, Mr Mulder....

A) I don't see anything inherently stupid about the study.

B) Nowhere does it give any indication or excuse for being fat, just that some people with a certain gene tend to have a higher appetite at night.

C) Northwestern is a private school, and has little to do with the government.

Also that other study was contradicting a previous government report on obesity related fatalites as I recall. I'm not in the mood to read it again, but I think it said that people who were a little overweight were often quite healthy. Maybe just saying that the extra ten pounds in the gut isn't going to kill anyone. It just said that deaths from being overweight were overstated.

Pardon my annoyance, but I am so sick of these studies that all contradict one another. I understand that all these studies do not ioriginate from teh gov't...but very often the gov't does fund them, and that means the gov't is invested in the outcome of the study.

When will scientists realize that every person is as individual as their DNA and think of some way to check our genetic info for "bad" genes that cause: obesisty, addicitive tendencies, cancer, and any number of chronic conditions that may or may not be preventable/cured before they happen?

I am no longer listening to any dumbass studies...no matter where they originate. Anyone with half a brain can make any study stats say anything they want...I even have a book called: How to Lie With Statistics.

Just annoyed this AM...I think I need another cup of coffee (it that a genetic addiction or not? coffee addicition runs in my family...).

I understand exactly how you feel. As for the coffee addiction, I am sure there are studies showing it is both and neither.

Next they're gonna tell us that you can just "blame your genes" if you're "short" or "bald" or "black".