Obesity is a complex multifaceted disease resulting from interactions between genetics and lifestyle. The proportion of phenotypic variance ascribed to genetic variance is 0.4 to 0.7 for obesity and recent years have seen considerable success in identifying disease-susceptibility variants. Although with the advent of genome-wide association studies the list of genetic variants predisposing to o...

Neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nvAMD) can cause severe vision loss among the elderly. Genetic risk factors for AMD include several variants related to the immune system and lipid metabolism. Obesity is a well-known predisposing factor for nvAMD but how this metabolic disorder modulates angiogenesis in the posterior eye segment was largely unknown. In this issue of EMBO Molecular ...

Objective—To investigate the associations between obesity-predisposing genetic variants, cardiovascular biomarkers, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in women with preexisting type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods and Results—We genotyped polymorphisms at nine established obesity loci in 1,395 women with diabetes from the Nurses’ Health Study: 449 women developed CVD, and 946 women did not deve...

The obesity epidemic is a worldwide problem. Factors predisposing to obesity include genetics, race, socioeconomic conditions, birth by cesarean section, and perinatal antibiotic use. High protein (HP) content in infant formulas has been identified as a potential culprit predisposing to rapid weight gain in the first few months of life and leading to later obesity. In a large multicountry study...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the associations between obesity-predisposing genetic variants, cardiovascular biomarkers, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in women with preexisting type 2 diabetes mellitus. METHODS AND RESULTS We genotyped polymorphisms at nine established obesity loci in 1,395 women with diabetes from the Nurses' Health Study: 449 women developed CVD, and 946 women did not de...

The unwarranted connection between diabetes mellitus and breast cancer has gained new ground in recent years. Breast cancer in Saudi females accounts for approximately 21% of all cancers and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in Saudi females is also 21.5%. DM is diagnosed in the age group of 30+ years with possible exposure to predisposing factors like hyperinsulinemia and obesity at you...

In the last few years, our understanding of the physiological systems that regulate food intake and body weight has increased enormously. A growing number of factors and signaling molecules involved in food intake and its hormonal regulation indicate that this behavior is coordinated by highly complex processes (1–4). Orexigenic and satiety systems, although finely balanced, seem more effective...

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder with established, well-defined precursors. Obesity and insulin resistance are amongst most important factors in predisposition to diabetes. Rice is a staple for about half the global population and its consumption has been strongly linked with diabetogenesis. We assert that tackling the prevalence of predisposing factors by modifying certain rice cultivar...