LONDON - A pair of obese cousins offer the first evidence that obesity can be blamed on a genetic mutation in people, British doctors reported yesterday.
The cousins have the same mutation in the gene that orders the body to produce leptin, a newly discovered hormone linked with body fat. Although mice genetically engineered to become obese show genetic mutations, this is the first time a mutated gene has been found in obese humans, Dr Sadaf Farooqi and colleagues at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge report.
