I found this interesting rebuttal to this FTO gene causing obesity......
Genes Do Not Cause Obesity
by
Dr. Gerry Lower
The western media has recently notified the literate world of the latest progress in genome research, i.e., that genes are now considered a "cause" of obesity. Today, 64.5 percent of U.S. adults over the age of 20 are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese. Obesity is considered a "disease" that affects nearly 60 million people (1). Watching the epidemic of obesity spread across America (graphic animation) since 1985 is a worthy way to get informed (2).
As reported by the media, "The first clear-cut evidence of a common gene that explains why some people get fat and others stay lean is published today. A British study of 38,000 people shows one-sixth of the population carries a 70 per cent higher risk of being obese as a result of variants in the so-called FTO gene" (3,4).
In the eyes of the media, this report is seen as being very relevant to a society with an overabundance of obese people. This is not quite the case. First of all, we are talking about 1 out of 6 people who carry the FTO gene. This minority of individuals has a 70 per cent higher likelihood of becoming obese. The FTO gene is clearly not a necessary element of causation in obesity.
An increased risk of 70% translates into an odds ratio of 1.4. A 100 per cent increased risk translates into an odds ratio of 2.0. Prior to the corporate marketplace take over of western society during the 1970s, the standard rule in epidemiology was that odds ratios of 2.0 or less can almost always be explained away as Type 1 error and happenstance (5).
The large sample size in the British study confers believability, but an odds ratio of 1.4 would mean that individuals carrying the FTO gene would have less than double the risk of becoming obese compared to people without the gene. Even if their FTO gene has contributed to their obesity, they will still have gotten fat by eating more and doing less. The natural remedy would still involve eating less and doing more.
Use of the term "relative risk" is also a misnomer in this instance. The FTO gene does not cause obesity. The FTO gene does not increase relative risk, therefore, but is likely serving more as a determinant of relative susceptibility to overeating one's way to obesity. The FTO gene is more contributory than causal.
The FTO gene occurs in a minority of people and it less than doubles their likelihood of becoming obese. This gene is just one of a battery of genes that must influence our ability to turn food into body fat. Diversity in genotype provides diversity in phenotype which does nothing but provide adaptability and survival advantage.
In America, about 40 percent of women are obese. In Mauritania, only 25 percent of women are obese but it is largely intentional (6). Obesity has long been the ideal of beauty in Mauritania, a symbol of a family’s wealth in a land where food supplies have repeatedly been threatened by drought leading to famine. In traditional Mauritania, up to one third of female children were force fed in order to achieve the "beauty" of obesity. Women carrying the FTO gene in such circumstances might prove to have a real advantage.
After all the genes contributing to obesity have been identified, of course, we will only have learned that the best general way to avoid obesity is to eat less and do more. Some people will simply have to eat less and/or do more than others in avoiding obesity. Hippocrates and the ancient Greeks knew that much over two millennia ago. So, where is the value in reporting this kind of "science" in this manner, as if we knew nothing of what causes what?
Continuation of this approach will require that we identify the battery of genes that contribute to turning food into body fat. With an "obesity genotype" in hand, we ought be able to predict all of those people who would become obese if they eat too much or do too little ... but to what potentially dubious end?
Whom do we genotype for susceptibility to obesity? Do we genotype only those who can afford it? If predestined for obesity, will the potential victims actually eat less and do more? Knowing about your obesity-prone genotype after the fact of obesity is of little help. Alternatively, will the victims just place the blame for their condition on their genes, such that they may give up on dealing with their weight problem altogether (7)?
Is this not mostly a load of corporate capitalistic rot aimed at defining the people by maintaining the mythology that we Americans ought be "free" and able to do as we please without consequence and without acceptance of personal responsibility? Is this not mostly the efforts of greed-driven corporate America to convince us that freedom is synonymous with license? That is precisely how corporate America sees "freedom".
On the individual front, obesity is not genetic in origin, it is dietary in origin no matter what your genotype. On the collective front, when obesity becomes epidemic in society (2), obesity becomes cultural in origin. A self-centered, self-serving American marketplace culture is at the root of widespread obesity. The obese are the victims of the marketplace-driven cultural bullshit that has largely destroyed family and community and personal meaning in America.
Obesity Gene