Why do primates have so much obesity?

Humans share 99% of genetic information with other primates, such as chimpanzees. Unlike chimpanzees and monkeys, however, people tend to get fat. In the academic world, chimpanzees and monkeys usually eat wild fruit or grass, but people often eat high calorie foods and instant foods and do not exercise. However, researchers at the Duke University in the United States recently published a study in the journal "Genomic Biology and Evolution," a study that suggests that humans are fatally deprived of their energy-bearing genes by burning fat.

Debbie Swain Lentz The team of postdoctoral researchers at the Department of Biology at Duke University in the United States noted that obese and thin and healthy people have much more body fat than primates. Primates usually have less than 9% body fat, but 14 to 31% have healthy people.

The researchers compared the characteristics of the adipose tissue of humans, chimpanzees, and Rhesus monkeys and how they metabolize adipose tissue. As a result, chimpanzees and Rhesus monkeys have a lot of brown fat tissue, but people have a lot of white fat tissue. White fat is mainly concentrated in the blood or abdomen. Brown fat, on the other hand, is supplied with fat from white adipose tissue and produces heat and energy. It is brown with a lot of mitochondria and iron, which are the organelles that produce energy.

The researchers also found that humans have lowered the expression of genes involved in energy metabolism (lipid metabolism) by burning fat compared to primates. For genes to be expressed well, 'chromatin accessibility' should be good enough to allow the enzyme to attach to the DNA that is entangled in the protein. However, humans have less chromatin accessibility to the genes involved in lipid metabolism than the primates, and the promoter, which acts as a trigger to express the gene, and the enhancer, which acts as an amplifier. People tend to be obese because their body fat percentage, especially the amount of white fat, and their ability to metabolize fat burn down genetically. Gregrey, a biology professor who led the study, said, "People develop their brains rather than other primates, so they use energy-generating glucose." They have evolved to store energy rather than burn it to stockpile energy needed for other metabolism "I guess.