The family roots of obesity

摘要

Stephen O'Rahilly and Sadaf Farooqi, genetics researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, have been on the hunt for the genes that drive obesity for more than 15 years. One of their first big breaks came in 1997， when two severely obese cousins from Pakistan were referred to them for a clinical assessment. The eight-year-old girl weighed 86 kg - as much as a tall man - and the two-year-old boy tipped the scales at 29 kg. No matter how much these children ate, they never felt full.