New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) In a significant breakthrough, an international team of researchers has created a genetic test called a polygenic risk score (PGS) that predicts the risk of obesity in early childhood.

The test, which predicts the risk of obesity by age 5, may be key to identifying children and adolescents at higher genetic risk of developing the condition. It may help to target them with preventative strategies, such as lifestyle interventions, at a younger age.

“What makes the score so powerful is its ability to predict, before the age of five, whether a child is likely to develop obesity in adulthood, well before other risk factors start to shape their weight later in childhood. Intervening at this point can have a huge impact,” said lead author Roelof Smit, Assistant Professor from the NNF Center for Basic Metabolic Research (CBMR) at the University of Copenhagen and of the research published in Nature Medicine.

“This new polygenic score is a dramatic improvement in predictive power and a leap forward in the genetic prediction of obesity risk, which brings us much closer to clinically useful genetic testing,” added Professor Ruth Loos from the varsity.

The World Obesity Federation expects more than half the global population to develop overweight or obesity by 2035. Obesity is a known precursor to many diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

The PGS test, involving more than 600 scientists from 500 institutions globally, was developed by drawing on genetic data from over five million people.

PGS acts like a calculator that combines the effects of the different risk variants that a person carries and provides an overall score.

The team found that their new PGS was twice as effective as the previous best test at predicting a person’s risk of developing obesity.

The scientists also investigated the relationship between a person’s genetic risk of obesity and the impact of lifestyle weight loss interventions, such as diet and exercise.

They discovered that people with a higher genetic risk of obesity were more responsive to interventions but also regained weight more quickly when the interventions ended.

However, the new PGS has its limitations. Despite drawing on the genomes of a broader, more globally representative population, it was far better at predicting obesity in people with European-like ancestry than in people with African ancestry.

–IANS

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