Program for defining individualized treatments for each type of obesity

Jan 27 2006

The Danone Institute has provided a fellowship for basic research to Ana Antsn Solanas, a research assistant in the Dietetics and Diet Therapy Unit of the University of Navarra. With the help of this fellowship, the researcher will collaborate in a program for defining individualized treatments for each type of obesity.

The grant will finance her participation in the project entitled "Effects of a Hypocaloric Diet and Physical Training in the Metabolic and Hormonal Response in a Group of Obese Women with a Gln27Glu Polymorphism in the Beta2adrenergic Receptor."

The objective of the study consists in detecting the metabolic and hormonal response of overweight women with Gln27Glu polymorphism. That patients with this genetic trait presented a greater index of body mass than normal women, despite performing exercise on a regular basis. Our goal consists precisely in understanding the reason that women with this trait are more resistant to weight loss.

The ultimate objective of the project of which Ms. Antsn forms part is to understand the characteristics of obese persons with differing genetic polymorphisms, and to develop individualized treatments for each case. Until now, in the treatment of obesity, clinical practice focused on the likes and dislikes of the patients. In the future, however, we will be able to create diets and exercise regimens which are genetically adjusted to the individual person.