Genetics, and more specifically epigenetics, has been considered for years as a possible factor linked to the development of obesity.
Now, a recent study has shown that a very low calorie ketogenic diet, VLCKD (Very Low Calorie Ketogenic Diets), may reverse these epigenetic changes caused by obesity.
This is the conclusion of the study recently published in the journal Clinical Nutrition, led by scientists from CIBEROBN and the Health Research Institute of Santiago.
What is epigenetics?
Epigenetics determines how the things that happen to a person throughout their life can change the way their DNA is expressed, and how that change can be passed on to the next generation.
It is a process in which gene expression is modified without any change in the DNA code itself. Small chemical tags are added to or removed from our DNA in response to changes in the environment we live in, and these switch genes on or off, making it possible to adapt to the conditions around us without causing a permanent change in our genomes.
Factors such as nutrition or physical activity shape these changes, which is why epigenetics has long been put forward as a possible factor involved in the development of conditions such as obesity.
How do certain diets influence epigenetic changes?
The study included 21 patients who followed a ketogenic diet as part of a weight-loss programme, which included support measures for behavioural and lifestyle change over six months. The data were analysed at three points during the intervention and compared with results obtained in 12 volunteers of normal weight.
After treatment, the methylation profile of these individuals came to resemble more closely the profile seen in individuals of normal weight, and the epigenetic changes caused by obesity were reversed following treatment.
Because the effect was seen in the most intense phase of the nutritional intervention, this epigenetic effect could be mediated mainly by the ketosis induced by the VLCKD.
The changes in the DNA methylation profile after the VLCKD could therefore be related to the beneficial effects of this type of nutritional therapy on body weight and body composition, on biochemical and hormonal parameters and on quality of life, and driven mainly by the state of induced nutritional ketosis.
Put another way, it is as if, for a time, this low-calorie diet produced a favourable epigenetic reset or clean-up, modulating many of the unfavourable changes in the genes that underlie obesity.
