Series 2 Episode 1. Tim Frayling and Rachel Freathy. Finding the Fat gene

Released 28 May 2024

Tim Frayling and Rachel Freathy talk about how they found the “Fat gene” in 2007. The Exeter team, working with Oxford, discovered the first common genetic change that increased body weight and predisposed to obesity.

Rachel Freathy. To see more about her career see here

Tim Frayling. To see more about his career read here

In this episode Tim Frayling and Rachel Freathy talk to Andrew and Maggie about how a joint team from Exeter and Oxford discovered the first common genetic variant that predisposes to obesity. The genetic change was close to the FTO gene, it was called the “fat gene” by the lay press. It is still the common genetic variant with the greatest impact on body weight: the 16% of the population who inherit 2 copies of the risk variant are 3 kg heavier than the 36% who inherit no copies of the risk variant. This difference in weight was due almost entirely to a difference in fat mass and it results in a 67% increase in the risk of obesity.

This is the paper that was published in Science in April 2007.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17434869/

Here are some of the headlines from the press on the day the findings were published:

This is the photograph of Andrew Hattersley and Tim Frayling with 3 kg of fat (purchased as lard in the local supermarket!)