SYDNEY, Oct. 27 (Xinhua) -- A single DNA mutation common in animals could play a role in obesity and other health problems linked to a high carbohydrate intake, pointing to diets that could one day be prescribed according to people's specific genes, according to a latest Australian research.
In the study, University of New South Wales scientists looked at different diets affecting fruit fly populations and found a "surprising difference" between two sets of the insects when feeding them alternate diets high in protein and high in carbohydrates, according to a university statement on Saturday.
Fruit fly larvae with a noted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation showed a pronounced increase in development when eating a high carbohydrate diet of banana, but stagnated on a high protein diet of passionfruit, the researchers reported.
Conversely, fly larvae without the mutation "thrived on the high protein diet, but dropped in frequency when put on carbohydrates."
"What is unique about this study is we've identified one mutation in the mitochondrial genome, that when fed a specific diet is advantageous and causes the frequency of flies in a population cage to increase," said the university's Professor Bill Ballard, who led the study published in genetics-focused journal PLOS Genetics.
"Then when you swap the diet back to a high protein diet, the flies with the mutation go down in numbers and the other flies without the mutation go up."
Given that humans share 75 percent of the same genes as fruit flies, and have the same mtDNA genes, "it is certainly an intriguing prospect that the same mutation inherited in human mtDNA may metabolize carbohydrates in a similar way," according to the university.
Such knowledge of a person's mtDNA type "could help explain why a diet high in carbohydrates may induce obesity and diabetes in some but not others," said Ballard. Confirming the above would take more years of surveying and testing but the idea is certainly worth exploring, he said.
"The most obvious implication from our work is that people should start to manage their diets to match their genotypes to fulfil their specific goals."
