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On the evolutionary origins of obesity: a new hypothesis

On the evolutionary origins of obesity: a new hypothesis
On the evolutionary origins of obesity: a new hypothesis
Obesity is an escalating threat of pandemic proportions, currently affecting billions of people worldwide and exerting a devastating socioeconomic influence in industrialized countries. Despite intensive efforts to curtail obesity, results have proved disappointing. Although it is well recognized that obesity is a result of gene-environment interactions and that predisposition to obesity lies predominantly in our evolutionary past, there is much debate as to the precise nature of how our evolutionary past contributed to obesity. The "thrifty genotype" hypothesis suggests that obesity in industrialized countries is a throwback to our ancestors having undergone positive selection for genes that favored energy storage as a consequence of the cyclical episodes of famine and surplus after the advent of farming 10 000 years ago. Conversely, the "drifty genotype" hypothesis contends that the prevalence of thrifty genes is not a result of positive selection for energy-storage genes but attributable to genetic drift resulting from the removal of predative selection pressures. Both theories, however, assume that selection pressures the ancestors of modern humans living in western societies faced were the same. Moreover, neither theory adequately explains the impact of globalization and changing population demographics on the genetic basis for obesity in developed countries, despite clear evidence for ethnic variation in obesity susceptibility and related metabolic disorders. In this article, we propose that the modern obesity pandemic in industrialized countries is a result of the differential exposure of the ancestors of modern humans to environmental factors that began when modern humans left Africa around 70 000 years ago and migrated through the globe, reaching the Americas around 20 000 years ago. This article serves to elucidate how an understanding of ethnic differences in genetic susceptibility to obesity and the metabolic syndrome, in the context of historic human population redistribution, could be used in the treatment of obesity in industrialized countries.
0013-7227
1573-1588
Sellayah, Dyan
07762e57-fcb9-4a28-8982-691196295464
Cagampang, Felino R.
7cf57d52-4a65-4554-8306-ed65226bc50e
Cox, Roger D.
b8949353-e4d9-4419-b596-357858e16451
Sellayah, Dyan
07762e57-fcb9-4a28-8982-691196295464
Cagampang, Felino R.
7cf57d52-4a65-4554-8306-ed65226bc50e
Cox, Roger D.
b8949353-e4d9-4419-b596-357858e16451

Sellayah, Dyan, Cagampang, Felino R. and Cox, Roger D. (2014) On the evolutionary origins of obesity: a new hypothesis. Endocrinology, 155 (5), 1573-1588. (doi:10.1210/en.2013-2103). (PMID:24605831)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Obesity is an escalating threat of pandemic proportions, currently affecting billions of people worldwide and exerting a devastating socioeconomic influence in industrialized countries. Despite intensive efforts to curtail obesity, results have proved disappointing. Although it is well recognized that obesity is a result of gene-environment interactions and that predisposition to obesity lies predominantly in our evolutionary past, there is much debate as to the precise nature of how our evolutionary past contributed to obesity. The "thrifty genotype" hypothesis suggests that obesity in industrialized countries is a throwback to our ancestors having undergone positive selection for genes that favored energy storage as a consequence of the cyclical episodes of famine and surplus after the advent of farming 10 000 years ago. Conversely, the "drifty genotype" hypothesis contends that the prevalence of thrifty genes is not a result of positive selection for energy-storage genes but attributable to genetic drift resulting from the removal of predative selection pressures. Both theories, however, assume that selection pressures the ancestors of modern humans living in western societies faced were the same. Moreover, neither theory adequately explains the impact of globalization and changing population demographics on the genetic basis for obesity in developed countries, despite clear evidence for ethnic variation in obesity susceptibility and related metabolic disorders. In this article, we propose that the modern obesity pandemic in industrialized countries is a result of the differential exposure of the ancestors of modern humans to environmental factors that began when modern humans left Africa around 70 000 years ago and migrated through the globe, reaching the Americas around 20 000 years ago. This article serves to elucidate how an understanding of ethnic differences in genetic susceptibility to obesity and the metabolic syndrome, in the context of historic human population redistribution, could be used in the treatment of obesity in industrialized countries.

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Published date: 24 February 2014
Organisations: Human Development & Health

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 367843
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/367843
ISSN: 0013-7227
PURE UUID: 1a88a89a-f234-4261-9537-e7e761273849
ORCID for Felino R. Cagampang: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4404-9853

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Date deposited: 07 Aug 2014 15:23
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:14

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Author: Dyan Sellayah
Author: Roger D. Cox

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