FTO Genotype Interacts with Improvement in Aerobic Fitness on Body Weight Loss During Lifestyle Intervention.
Not every participant responds with a comparable body weight loss to lifestyle intervention, despite the same compliance. Genetic factors may explain parts of this difference. Variation in fat mass and obesity-associated gene (FTO) is the strongest common genetic determinant of body weight. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of FTO genotype differences in the link between improvement of fitness and reduction of body weight during a lifestyle intervention.



We genotyped 292 healthy subjects for FTO rs8050136. Participants underwent a 9-month lifestyle intervention. Before and after intervention, aerobic fitness was tested by bicycle (VO2max) and treadmill spiroergometry (individual anaerobic threshold (IAT), subgroup of N = 192).



Participants lost body weight (p < 0.0001) independent of FTO genotype (p = 0.5). There was a significant correlation between improvement in VO2max and decrease in body weight (p < 0.0001). FTO genotype interacted with this relationship (p = 0.0042 for VO2max, p = 0.0049 for IAT). When stratifying the cohort according to their improvement in VO2max, FTO obesity-risk A-allele carriers in the higher quartiles of improvement in fitness lost significantly less body weight.



Our data reveal that genetic variation in FTO impacts on body weight reduction during lifestyle intervention only in subjects with marked improvement in aerobic fitness.
Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases (IDM) of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tx00FC;bingen, Tx00FC;bingen, Germany.
Corinna
C
Sailer
Vera
V
Schmid
Louise
L
Fritsche
Tsvetelina
T
Gerter
Fausto
F
Machicao
Andreas
A
Niess
Hans-Ulrich
HU
Häring
Norbert
N
Stefan
Andreas
A
Fritsche
Martin
M
Heni
D000483:Alleles; D000071516:Alpha-Ketoglutarate-Dependent Dioxygenase FTO / Q000235:genetics*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight / Q000235:genetics; D015444:Exercise; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D009765:Obesity / Q000235:genetics* / Q000628:therapy; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D010809:Physical Fitness; D015431:Weight Loss / Q000235:genetics*
D000071516:Alpha-Ketoglutarate-Dependent Dioxygenase FTO; C526492:FTO protein, human