COLUMBIA, Mo. A Mizzou researcher has found genes that may predispose laziness in rats. The findings may translate to humans.

Frank Booth, professor with the College of Veterinary Medicine, said, We have shown that it is possible to be genetically predisposed to being lazy, Booth said. This could be an important step in identifying additional causes for obesity in humans, especially considering dramatic increases in childhood obesity in the United States."

Booth's team was able to breed rats that exhibited traits of either extreme activity or extreme laziness. They wrote in an academic paper that these rats indicate that genetics could play a role in exercise motivation, even in humans.

"It would be very useful to know if a person is genetically predisposed to having a lack of motivation to exercise, because that could potentially make them more likely to grow obese, Booth said.

Studies show 80 to 97 percent of American adults get less than 30 minutes of exercise a day, which is the minimum recommended by federal guidelines.

Roberts' team put rats in cages with running wheels and measured how much each rat willingly ran on its wheel over six days. They then bred the top 26 runners with each other and bred the 26 rats that ran the least with each other.

They repeated this process through 10 generations and found that the line of running rats chose to run 10 times more than the line of lazy rats.

Once the researchers created their super runner and couch potato rats, they studied the levels ofmitochondriamitochondria in muscle cells, compared body composition and conducted genetic evaluations.

While we found minor differences in the body composition and levels of mitocondriain muscle cells of the rats, the most important thing we identified were the genetic differences between the two lines of rats, Roberts said. Out of more than 17,000 different genes in one part of the brain, we identified 36 genes that may play a role in predisposition to physical activity motivation.

The study is in the April 3 edition of the American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Excerpt from:
Researcher finds genetic link to couch potato-itis in rats, maybe humans

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