Taste for high-fat food 'in our genes'

The University of Cambridge team offered 54 volunteers unlimited portions of chicken korma, followed by an Eton mess-style dessert. Some of the meals were packed with fat while others were low-fat versions. Those with a gene already linked to obesity showed a preference for the high-fat food and ate more of it. The gene in question is called MC4R.  It is thought about one in every 1,000 people carries a defective version of this gene which controls hunger and appetite as well as how well we burn off calories. Although there was no overall difference in the amount of food the individuals ate, the 14 people with defective MC4R unwittingly ate significantly more of the high-fat korma than did the 20 lean individuals and the 20 obese people in the study who were included for comparison.