Mediterranean Diet and Genetic Determinants of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome in European Children and Adolescents.

Pilar De Miguel-Etayo,Miguel Seral-Cortes,Idoia Labayen,Alicia Larruy-García,Luis A. Moreno

doi:10.3390/genes13030420

Abstract

Childhood obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are multifactorial diseases influenced by genetic and environmental factors. The Mediterranean Diet (MD) seems to modulate the genetic predisposition to obesity or MetS in European adults. The FTO gene has also been shown to have an impact on the MD benefits to avoid obesity or MetS. Since these interaction effects have been scarcely analyzed in European youth, the aim was to describe the gene–MD interplay, analyzing the impact of the genetic factors to reduce the obesity and MetS risk through MD adherence, and the MD impact in the obesity and MetS genetic profile. From the limited evidence on gene–MD interaction studies in European youth, a study showed that the influence of high MD adherence on adiposity and MetS was only observed with a limited number of risk alleles; the gene–MD interplay showed sex-specific differences, being higher in females. Most results analyzed in European adults elucidate that, the relationship between MD adherence and both obesity and MetS risk, could be modulated by obesity genetic variants and vice versa. Further research is needed, to better understand the inter-individual differences in the association between MD and body composition, and the integration of omics and personalized nutrition considering MD.

Highlights

Obesity is defined as excess of body fat, and its prevalence has alarmingly increased over the last decades, with negative implications for the population’s health status [1]
The aims of the present study are: (i) to provide an overview of the Mediterranean Diet (MD) benefits and its impact on body composition in European children and adolescents; (ii) to describe the potential gene-MD interaction effects that could modulate the risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS) development in European youth
This study showed that pleiotropic genetic effects and enrichment of functional annotations in genetic variants were significantly associated with both childhood obesity and cardiometabolic diseases in adulthood

Summary

Introduction

Obesity is defined as excess of body fat, and its prevalence has alarmingly increased over the last decades, with negative implications for the population’s health status [1]. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is known to be a major health challenge in youth with increasing prevalence and a high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases in adulthood [6,7]. Both diseases could coexist within a given individual, acting in negative synergy to be fully established in a permanent status later in life [8]. Since obesity and MetS are complex and multifactorial diseases, they are influenced by genetic and environmental factors [10,11] It seems that these factors do not act independently [12]. They either interact [13,14] or mediate [15,16] with each other to influence overweight and obesity risk

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Conclusion