Personalized treatments according to type of obesity

The Danone Institute has provided a fellowship for basic research to Ana Antón 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. Antón 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.

Subtract 500 calories daily and perform physical exercise

The 37 patients which will participate in the study will be required to follow a hypocaloric diet for 16 weeks, with a reduction of 500 calories with respect to their daily energy expenditure, and a controlled program of physical exercise.