Studies have shown that people without the SI gene may have difficulty digesting sweet food, causing them to dislike it.
Are you trying hard to control your sweet food intake but not able to? An international team of scientists has now found that a genetic mutation could enable people to cut down their sugar intake. The study, led by scientists at the University of Nottingham in Britain, included researchers from Denmark, Greenland, Italy and Spain. They found a gene – the sucrase-isomaltase (SI) gene – that makes people dislike sweet foods. While “excess calories from sugar is an established contributor to obesity and type 2 diabetes,” the new findings, published in the journal Gastroenterology, could pave the way for targeting the SI gene to selectively help people reduce their sugar intake. Are.
Studies have shown that people without the SI gene may have difficulty digesting sweet food, causing them to dislike it. The researchers said this gene is also linked to irritable bowel syndrome – a common functional disorder. “Our study shows that genetic variation in our ability to digest dietary sucrose may affect not only how much sucrose we eat, but also how much we like sweet foods,” said Dr. Peter Aldis, who Now a group leader in the School of Medicine in the University. Of nottingham.
The team first studied rats. They examined feeding behavior in mice without the SI gene and found that sucrose intake and preference were sharply reduced in such mice. To confirm the results in humans, the team conducted a study of 6,000 individuals in Greenland and 134,766 individuals from the UK. They found that people in Greenland with a complete inability to digest dietary sucrose ate significantly less sucrose-rich foods. On the other hand, individuals in the UK with a faulty, partially functional SI gene liked sucrose-rich foods less.
“These findings suggest that genetic variation in our ability to digest dietary sucrose may influence our intake of and preference for sucrose-rich foods, while allowing SI to selectively reduce sucrose intake at the population level. That opens up the possibility of targeting,” Aldis said.
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