Keeping weight off may be stymied by fat cells’ ‘memory’ of obesity

Fat tissue may commit weight to memory.

For people living with obesity, losing weight can help reduce the risk of health problems such as type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease (SN: 2/29/24). But losing weight and keeping it off is difficult, and it’s unclear why. A new study in mice and human cells shows that the struggle may in part be because of genetic changes that can persist even after weight loss.

Chemical tags on DNA that act as genetic switchboards, called epigenetics, can control which genes are turned on or off (SN: 2/18/15). In fat tissue, the status of some genes and these tags seem to create a

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