Researchers recently discovered the obvious: It’s harder for some people to lose weight than others because of their genes. Let’s go over the details and then dive into how this knowledge can guide your diet and exercise decisions.
It turns out that 88% of peoples’ bodies resist burning fat during low intensity exercise. This is why most of your friends on Facebook either complain that exercise doesn’t seem to “work” for them or they recommend high intensity things like CrossFit and HIIT. That is, except the 12% of your prick friends who tell you to “take it easy on your joints” since walking and other easier forms of exercise work just as well.
Similarly, most peoples’ bodies will turn to blobs if they eat almost any carbs (45%) or almost any fat (39%). This is why the holy wars between paleo and atkins people are so intense. They don’t realize there really are at least two correct diets to belong to… for two distinct classes of people. Researchers have found that people who do the diet that’s matched to their genotype (for the 5 best markers scientists know of today) can lose weight 2.5x as fast as those on the opposite diet. Stanford is replicating the study right now if you want to personally join and find out first hand how big the effect is.
Is this the full and final understanding of dieting? No. These genes are probably only a small part of how human metabolism works. And as devotees of the physics diet will point out, these are “second order effects”… things that are less critical to dieting success than overall caloric intake – total physical exertion. That said, there’s no way everyone has an equal ability to lose weight if 5 genes can predict a greater than twofold increase in difficulty losing weight.
Anyway, if you have a 23andMe file (w/ V2 + V3 chip data), you can check these 5 SNPs that tell you what kind of diet and exercise program is most likely to match your genes.
The only way I knew of doing this test before was deciphering a dense patent application that mentions the SNPs the researchers studied. But I just made it into a simpler flow chart. Enjoy the reckless, fun self-diagnosis!
33 Responses to “These 5 Genes Predict What Kind of Diet and Exercise is Best For Your Body”
March 3
Kirk Lee Diviziogood points. dose of humor too. more refreshing than any cooked cow. thanks louie
March 3
Sean O HEigeartaigh“It turns out that 88% of peoples’ bodies resist burning fat during low intensity exercise. This is why most of your friends on Facebook either complain that exercise doesn’t seem to “work” for them or they recommend high intensity things like CrossFit and HIIT. That is, except the 12% of your prick friends who tell you to “take it easy on your joints” since walking and other easier forms of exercise work just as well.
Similarly, most peoples’ bodies will turn to blobs if they eat almost any carbs (45%) or almost any fat (39%). ”
Much too strongly put.
“Is this the full and final understanding of dieting? No. These genes are probably only a small part of how human metabolism works.”
This is true.
March 3
NickFascinating–how much credence do you give these results?
Not sure which chip version I had, but 23andMe had every SNP for me except rs1799883. Oh well–both branches from there still lead to the same place for me (low-fat). Not that I want to lose weight.
March 3
Louie HelmI think rs1799883 in on the V2 chip — the one before the most recent one.
I wouldn’t update heavily on these results. This isn’t as strong as something like the APOE mutation where you get something like a 20:1 update in favor of eventual Alzheimer’s.
That said, I think for someone who has weight loss as a goal and is genuinely unsure about which diet to try first, this is a good tool for breaking ties (or overriding second order preferences of choosing initial diets). I conjecture that this could outperform blind intuitions for first-time dieters. I expect their intuitions about what to cut out of their diets to lose weight will be randomly or even anti-correlated with what will actually help them. People often try the most “painless” diets first… which makes a certain kind of sense… but if you get 50% of the pain and 0% of the results, you probably should have taken the 100%/100% pain/gain route to begin with.
So yeah, this can probably save some people a few months of self-experimentation going down dead ends. And if it helps someone at least choose to start something because there’s a 2:1 or 3:1 update off of an ignorance prior, then at least they start and will find out sooner if the scant knowledge humans have on SNPs is enough to guide them into the right diet.
March 3
Megan ThorsenIt’s oddly pleasant to finally have a genetic flowchart that backs the results I have discovered for myself through experimentation. 🙂 Really, my diet discoveries have been a lot more detailed than that; in addition to fat loss, I also pay attention to the ability to gain muscle, mood, energy level, and other physiochemical symptoms of diet change. I’ve determined that eating according to the traditions of the people where most of my genes come from makes me feel best. Not a shocking discovery, but a worthwhile one since I didn’t have any training in Scandinavian cooking, and there aren’t a whole lot of restaurants around here to expose me to it. Heck, there aren’t even many German restaurants, just bakeries.
April 19
DGI have made the same discoveries through experimentation: “eating according to the traditions of the people where most of my genes come from” YES! Makes complete sense!
March 3
Steven Grimm“Disprivilege” is misspelled in the flowchart. It is making my inner pedant twitch uncomfortably. But great information — thanks for putting it together.
December 8
HR DrakeI wonder if there’s a gene for that? (If there is, I have it too)
March 3
Jeff AlstottI only have data for the first branch of the flow chart. How does one get data for the other chip data?
April 22
Louie HelmI’m not sure you can buy data from the V2 test anymore.
March 3
WilliamEdenSince I have been a big advocate of HIIT and low-carb dieting for weight loss and health, I predicted that my genetics would show me as predisposed to finding those methods more effective, and that my recommendations were mostly based on my particular metabolism.
My genes did show that HIIT worked for me, though given the prevalence that is not surprising, and HIIT is still the best recommendation for almost everyone.
But it turns out that these SNPs predict that I would lose more weight on a *low-fat diet*! This seems quite unlikely given my empirical experience. I’m more convinced that I stumbled on the correct metabolic pathways.
March 3
Louie HelmInteresting! I agree you’ve more than confirmed what works for you and what doesn’t through relentless self-experimentation and should obviously trust that data MUCH MUCH more.
Your data point almost makes me wonder if I missed an extra line in the chart now or mislabeled something. Mind sharing your SNPs with me (here or via email) and/or looking through the source patent and figuring out if you get the same result?
March 3
Daniel Smith23andme doesn’t show me data for rs1799883. 🙁
April 22
Louie HelmThat’s pretty common. Most people don’t have V2 data if they were done in the last few years.
Hopefully you’re one of the lucky ones whose data works out the same either way.
March 3
Desiree D. DudleyLouie!
Without quibbling on terminology of ‘first’ vs ‘second’ order, I totally agree that there’s ‘basically’ a healthy range of behavior that if most people got into consistently they’d be 80% of the way on health. (if A is aggressive athlete-level, we could call 80% a solid steady weight-loss to healthy maintenance B, where most Americans are an overweight C or D or debilitating fail by some metrics). For most people that’s getting some real movement in every day that’s at least as much output energy as input, and getting at least 20-50% rule of thumb balance of healthy carbs, protein and fat each at every regular meal. Most people don’t even consistently make those ranges: the rest, including genes is subtler tweaks for optimal performance or aesthetics.
However, you’re also right that some of this is too rockstar-reckless to be accurate. It’s sloppy on multiple levels:
– Practically speaking: equating all “almost any” carbs (45%?) (fibrous/veggie, starchy, high or low GI are NOT equal chemically or hormonally) or fats (transfats vs saturated?)…
– You don’t at all discuss the validity or different takes on snip research, but present as too simply TRUE. (For ex, if you look your up linked summary vs 23andme’s published explanations, exercise snip associations are not always in agreement as to meaning/association/what research is valid in reviews – like on rs1801282. This is part of why the bioethics committees have been having a cow about the wide spread of results in summary recs people that get with the same genetic profiles from different companies.)
– Totally superficial meh: mistaking the amino acids in very first snip in chart (it’s A or G for rs4994), typos…?
Summary: Points for intention, but deserves improved analysis and execution to be effective, useful or convincing.
March 3
Louie HelmYou would think it was A or G for rs4994, but 23andMe seems to apparently invert the data in the raw text file. Parsers like Prometheus and 23andMe itself correct these, but I added the variants of how it presents the data in actual files in case people actually just open the raw data.
I don’t feel like it’s a good use of my readers time to reingest a full discussion on the reliability and interpretability of SNPs in general every time they see anything written about genotyping. If I wrote to cover concerns of that level, every piece I wrote would be 3x as long and much more boring for intelligent people to read. The stakes are incredibly low here: I may (recklessly!) inspire someone to try a low-fat diet.
Anyway, I appreciate the feedback and hope I helped the next person interested in doing these tests not have to sort through the patents directly.
March 3
Eric RogstadJust wanted to point out that you can also do the search directly on the website at: https://www.23andme.com/you/explorer/
April 22
Louie HelmGood point! That makes it easier.
March 3
Marius van VoordenIf you don’t have rs1799883, just skip that one and take both options. They may end up in the same place.
March 3
Daniel SmithOr they may end up in opposite places, as in my case (rs1801282=CG).
March 3
Matthew PiziakAnd indeed you won’t have rs1799883 if your 23andMe is less than a year old or so. It’s not in the latest spread. Personally I’m in the -39% low-fat diet group. Very educational.
March 3
Marius van VoordenDaniel: Maybe we can narrow it down by looking at statistics. Check the human haplotype map: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/SNP/snp_ref.cgi?searchType=adhoc_search&type=rs&rs=rs1799883
If you scroll down a little, you’ll reach “Population Diversity (in rs orientation)”
This shows the relative frequency of genotypes in different areas. From the looks of it, whatever your race, you’ll end up with a little over half chance of G:G.
…that’s surprisingly unhelpful 🙂
If you know a bit about your heritage; if I understand everything correctly, this paper shows a significant correlation between A genotype and latitude, most likely due to cold climates. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2242814/#pgen-0040032-b054
March 3
Romeo Stevensthose 12% should do high intensity for the non-body composition related health benefits anyway. But the low carbs/low fat thing looks pretty interesting.
March 4
Dale LarsonI’m missing data for rs1799883, but if I read the flowchart correctly after that, it looks like I can eliminate genetic privilege for diet. Despite this, 20 years ago I successfully lost a lot of weight focussed on low fat (McDougall Diet and Ornish, so trying to keep fats under 10%), and I recently lost a lot of weight eating more balanced with plenty of healthy fats (about 30% of calories). I’m curious how they came up with the data to back the patent, and how we could refine it by mining the databases like MyFitnessPal…
March 6
TaurusI’m apparently among the 12% for whom high intensity exercise is unnecessary; I have a BMI of 19 and difficulty *gaining* weight (I do moderate intensity exercise a few days a week); this comports with my experience. I am, however, heterozygous (CG) at rs1801282; this SNP was toward the top of the list on my promethease report. More here:
http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1801282
I’ve been on a moderate-high fat diet (olive oil, nuts, etc), but I’m starting to realize that this may be behind some clinical signs I’ve recently developed.
Succinct and useful. Thanks, Lou.
May 29
seahenAny way to convert this to other formats? I’m not going to use 23andme because I want my entire genome done, now that it costs less than a decent used car.
June 19
jcedman1I’m confused. 23andme doesn’t show that T is an option for rs1042713.
July 24
KatrinaThanks for this, I did 23andMe and then went through Promethease to get health related results so I’ve been perusing that for the past couple of days. Apparently I have a gene that makes me resistant to prion disease, which means I can eat all the brains I want. But I don’t know about brains being low fat, and according to this, I should be vigorously active and eating a low fat diet. 😉 I’ve actually pretty much figured that out on my own. I’ve lost and kept off about 60lbs, but have another 60-70 I’d like to lose. I put on weight SO easily and have an extremely difficult time losing it, and looking through my sheet, I have a million “bad” genes for obesity. Sucks.
August 11
AnyaThank you. This is by far the BEST resource I have found to connect 23andMe info to diet and exercise. Can you recommend any additional resources like this?
October 3
HansFYI: FTDNA has the rs1799883 in their Family Finder test.
You need to download your raw data and manually search for it to find it.
November 20
DawnSo according to this chart a low-fat diet might be the way to go. I also have rs5082 CC. This gene is supposedly a contributor to obesity when consuming saturated fats.
These days the tides have turned to “eat butter and bacon all the time, fat is good for you”. Eh, maybe not for me. It sounds like moderate to low consumption is best for me.
I feel better on a complex carbohydrate, lean protein diet anyway.
February 15
SimonGreat resource! However, I also can’t find the rs1799883 in my 23andme data, which means I can’t eliminate any of the choices. Is there any alternative that can be gleaned from the 23andme data?
May 4
ErynThis was a cool article — knowledge really is power!
For those not genetically privileged, though, be aware there is another factor you can put in your favor that makes healthy weight easier to achieve and maintain — what bacterial helpers you’ve got on board in your gut. With the right crew, you can compensate for your own genetic deficiencies. Your microbiome has 10x the genetic possibility of your own DNA. See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603085914.htm
http://humanfoodproject.com/an-eaters-guide-to-a-healthy-microbiome/
Eating along with our ethnic tradition should also include eating along with our microbiotic tradition, which is hard to do because of modern food preparation and storage techniques. No matter what our ethnic background, we did not have year-round access to refrigeration, or unlimited supplies of running, clorinated water. We didn’t wash foods and hands obsessively, or keep raw foods on hand to cook and instantly eat. We dried, smoked or salted them for storage, probably with a bit of dirt. And we cooked them, ate some, and then had cold leftovers out of the pantry/cellar for several meals. That means we got plenty of microbes along with the food (in the dirt), and plenty of resistant starch in our cooked and cooled grains, beans and root vegetables. All those high carb items aren’t nearly as high carb when they’ve been cooked and cooled, even if reheated. Resistant starch is what the good gut bugs love. Those guys can make Vitamin B for you even if you can’t make it yourself due to a MTHFR defect. Adding their genomes to yours is a great way to overcome weight loss challenges! And the great thing is, though you can’t change your DNA, you can easily change your microbiome and it’s DNA.
For more info: http://freetheanimal.com/2013/12/resistant-primer-newbies.html