Wooldridge Memorial Lecture: The genetics of obesity: Can an old dog teach us new tricks?
21 Nov 2025
BVA Congress
It is clear that the cause of obesity is a result of eating more than you burn. It is physics. What is more complex to answer is why some people eat more than others? Differences in our genetic make-up mean some of us are slightly more hungry all the time and so eat more than others. I will highlight the fat-sensing 'leptin-melanocortin' pathway, as a key appetite control circuit. Not only is the pathway conserved in all mammals and many higher vertebrates, but genetic disruption of the pathway as an evolutionary strategy to influence feeding behaviour has also been conserved. In contrast to the prevailing view, obesity is not a choice. People who are obese are not bad or lazy; rather, they are fighting their biology.
- Understand the evidence for a genetic basis to body-weight.
- Learn about the leptin-melanocortin pathway, and its conservation through evolution.
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