Icelandic bio-pharmaceutical company deCODE Genetics announced last weekend the discovery of common variations at seven new sites in the human genome found to influence obesity.
At a deCODE laboratory in Iceland. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
“One of the most notable aspects of these discoveries is that most of these new risk factors are near genes that regulate processes in the brain. This suggests that as we work to develop better means of combating obesity, including using these discoveries as the first step in developing new drugs,” Kári Stefánsson, CEO of deCODE, said in a statement on the company’s website.
According to Morgunbladid, obesity is considered among the most serious health problems in the western countries.
The deCODE-led multinational team of scientists analyzed more than 300,000 single-letter variations (SNPs) across the genomes of more than 30,000 people from Iceland, the Netherlands and the United States, and confirmed the findings in data from more than 40,000 individuals from Denmark and the US-based GIANT Consortium.
Click here to read more about this story and here to read more about deCODE’s work.
