New genetic test could predict if you'll get condition suffered by 100million Americans decades before it develops
A group of 600 researchers worldwide compiled genetic data from 5million people, the largest and most diverse dataset to date.
They used that data to create a polygenic risk score, a person's genetic predisposition for a specific disease. In this case, it determined the odds of having a higher body mass index (BMI) in adulthood.
The team found the score could be used to predict a person's risk of becoming obese as an adult - even for people as young as five years old. This could be instrumental for early intervention and preventing obesity - and its coexisting conditions.
Ruth Loos, study co-author and professor at the University of Copenhagen's Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, said: 'Childhood is the best time to intervene.'
The score also was found to be up to twice as effective as those used in doctors offices based on factors like high blood pressure, heart disease, diet and exercise.
Additionally, researchers found people with high polygenic risk scores were also more likely to regain weight after losing it through diet and exercise compared to those with lower scores.
Loos added: 'Obesity is not only about genetics, so genetics alone can never accurately predict obesity.
'For the general obesity that we see all over the world, we need other factors such as lifestyle that need to be part of the predictions.'
The findings come as more than 40 percent of Americans adults - 100million - are now obese, meaning they have a BMI of at least 30.
Rates among young people in particular have surged the most, with quadruple the amount of teens being obese worldwide compared to the 1990s.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, used genetic data from 5.1million people worldwide collected from 200 studies and 23andMe.
The majority (71 percent) were of European ancestry, while 14 percent were of Hispanic ethnicity, eight percent were predominantly East Asian, five percent were African or African American and 1.5 percent were South Asian.
Overall, the researchers found polygenic risk scores accounted for about 18 percent of a person with European ancestry's risk for having a high BMI as an adult compared to 8.5 percent on average for scores used by physicians.
The remaining percentage is made up of lifestyle related factors like diet and exercise.
However, this rate varied depending on ethnicity.
For East Asian Americans, the score explained 16 percent of the risk for high BMI, though it was just 2.2 percent for people from rural Uganda and five percent for African ancestry overall.
Because most participants were European, the team said further research is needed to look at other groups, particularly those of African descent.
Based on the polygenic risk score calculated in the study, more than 80 percent of a person's risk for obesity can be explained by factors other than genetics, including where people live, foods they have access to and how much they exercise.
Dr Roy Kim, a pediatric endocrinologist at Cleveland Clinic Children's who was not involved with the research, told NBC News: 'Behavioral things are really important. Their environment, their access to healthy food, exercise opportunities, even their knowledge about healthy foods all affect a person's obesity risk.'
In children, BMI increased at a faster rate in those with a higher genetic predisposition than those with a lower risk, which was most evident at just two and a half years old.
Additionally, individuals with higher polygenic risk scores lost more weight in the first year of lifestyle interventions like diet and exercise than a control group.
However, people with high scores who lost at least three percent of their baseline weight in the first year had a higher risk of regaining it in the years that followed compared to a control group.
Dr Joel Hirschhorn, study author and professor of pediatrics and genetics at Boston Children's Hospital, told The New York Times: 'There is definitely predictive value in genetics.'
He added that with the new study 'we are now a lot closer to being able to use genetics in a potentially meaningful predictive way.'
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