Interactions between genes and the environment in childhood obesity

Abstract

Introduction: Childhood obesity represents one of the most important public health problems today and affects both developed and developing countries. The negative impact on the health of children makes it necessary to clearly know the mechanisms that predispose to this condition, in order to establish the best therapeutic strategies in the comprehensive care of patients.

Objective: Obtain recently published information about the interaction between genes and the environment in childhood obesity.

Methods: A bibliographic search was carried out in Medline database through Pubmed on the literature published on the subject between January 2016 and September 2021, selecting the most relevant articles.

Analysis and integration of information: Initially, obesity was associated with unhealthy lifestyles such as exaggerated caloric intake and sedentary lifestyle and, later, through genome-wide association studies it was possible to discover the existence of multiple polymorphisms associated with the increase in body mass index, adiposity and metabolic syndrome, without these being able to fully explain the expression of obesity in the population.

Conclusions: There is sufficient evidence to conclude that there is an interaction between genes and the environment for the development of obesity, which would be influenced by an individual susceptibility; however, more studies are needed to fully understand the mechanisms involved.