A recent study showed that several children, who suffer from obesity, have some kind of a genetic mutation, making them feel hungry more often than usual.

A group of British researchers studied the DNA of 300 children who were very fat, at least 220 pounds at age 10.

They saw evidence of several exceptional deletions on the kids’ DNA segments, which they believed to have a strong impact to their being obese.

“This is the first evidence that copy number variants have been linked to a metabolic condition such as obesity,” said Dr Matt Hurles from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Dr. Sadaq Farooqi of Cambridge University said, “That deletion, on chromosome 16, apparently causes trouble because it removes a gene that the brain needs to respond to the appetite-controlling hormone leptin.”

Obesity is considered as one of today’s major public health concern worldwide. About 25% of the children in UK today is clinically classed as obese, twice more than what it was a decade ago.

Want to earn some spare money as a writer for us? Send us an email!