Do our genes make us fat?

By Ruth Laugesen In Health, Nutrition

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16th June, 2012
As a boy, generously proportioned Gerry Brownlee stuck out in his family like a goose among ducks. From a young age, the future Cabinet minister was a big boy in a family of thin people, according to uncle Owen Brownlee, prompting worried visits to the doctor with his parents. Despite all the Brownlee children eating at the same dinner table, Gerry mysteriously piled on the pounds faster than his skinny siblings. Whatever was at work, it wasn’t simply his environment. A generation after young Gerry was the cause of so much concern for his parents, cases like these have fuelled interest ...

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