Carbs to Fat Blocker: Gene DNA-PK Absence Reduces Body Fat by 40%

by Tina Kells | March 20, 2009 at 04:08 pm

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A gene known as DNA-PK has been identified as the gene that turns carbs into fat and researchers are hopeful that the discovery will help control soaring obesity rates.

DNA-PK has offered researchers insight as to how the body converts carbs into fats. The gene appears to act to regulate the way the liver processes carbs. In studies with mice, those without the DNA-PK gene did not gain fat when they ate carbs and had lower overall cholesterol.

"We hope that this research will one day help people eat bread, pasta and rice and not worry about getting fat," Roger Wong, a graduate student who worked on the study, said in a statement.

When they bred mice with a disabled version of this gene, the mice stayed slim even when fed the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat pasta buffet.

"The DNA-PK disabled mice were leaner and had 40 percent less body fat compared with a control group of normal mice because of their deficiency in turning carbs into fat," Wong said.

Humans and mice both have this gene which is why the study is exciting. Identifying DNA-PK could lead to therapies or medications that lower obesity in humans reducing risks for heart disaease and other obesity related ailments.

Ahh ... wouldn't it be nice! I, for one, can't live without carbs.

Nobody is really comfortable without their carbs. You can walk, but you can't run when carb deprived.

Lowest-glycemic index carbs are barley, lentils, and oats, lowest to higher.

I know, imagine just having a little gene therapy and voila, carbs are no longer the enemy? Dare to dream!

Hmm ... don't those sound yummy, Roy... Where do potatoes and rice fit in there? I know ... sweet potato or basmati rice, but only in moderation, huh? : -(

Potatoes are high-glycemic carbs. So is white rice. The problem is that the studies are done with only the white rice or the potato and when you add sauces, meat, other veggies, the speed of the absorption of the carb slows down. So, exactly how the carbs you eat will be absorbed is not accurately predictable.

Potatoes are supposed to be as fast as table sugar, but I have never had a table-sugar like reaction to a potato.

What you do is eat your white rice or your potato and then take two tablespoons of barley. The barley is so viscous that it makes the whole "bolus", the ball of food being digested, stickier and harder to get at.

So, the carbs are broken down more slowly and absorbed more slowly and, as your blood sugar goes up more slowly, insulin doesn't go up that much, either.

When the cells get sugar at a slower rate, they don't turn on the enzymes that change sugar to fat. Those enzymes go down.

That means that even when you don't have the barley available, that meal will be digested with less conversion to fat.

As the sugar converts to fat, blood lipids go up. Insulin doesn't react as well and you move to a pre-diabetic state.

One more thing: if you like pasta, go ahead and eat it, even the white kind, but get the thicker kinds, such as rigatoni, or just add barley after or during the meal.

During the meal will help you feel full.

Cool, I've never heard of this, gonna check it out ... I'll be putting it on stuff - on top of my flax. ; -)

your body has not evolved to eat modern (genetically modified) carbs and even if manipulating this gene means that carbs aren't converted to fat, they have to go somewhere. Carbs convert to fat because the body can't burn them off fast enough. So this study may provide some clues as to how carbs are metabolized, but the study doesn't address what carbs do when they aren't converted. What were the insulin levels, for instance? Insulin is the killer drug.