A gene that's been shown to strongly influence obesity can help make people fatterbut only if they were born after 1942, a new study shows.

The findings bolster evidence that environmental or lifestyle changes could be impacting our health. They also show that while people have genes shaping all sorts of traits, these genes may only be activated under certain conditions. In this case, that environment might be a modern lifestyle, with cars, TV and fast food.

The gene is called FTO, and about 20 percent of white people have a variant of the gene that raises their risk of obesity. The links are clear and widely accepted by scientists. In 2007, British scientists found that people who carry two copies of this variation of the FTO gene weighed, on average, seven pounds more than people who lack it.

In the new study, researchers examined whether time affected the gene's influence.

They used the Framingham Heart Study, a giant, ongoing study of more than 10,000 people who fill out questionnaires and get medical exams every few years. About three-quarters of them also have had their DNA sequenced and, consequently, it's known which version of the FTO gene they have.

As might be expected, just about everyone gained weight as he or she got older.

"People born in the early 1940s or before had no increased risk for higher body mass index or obesity."

"What we wanted to see was whether there was a difference for people born in the earlier part of the cohort, during the 1920s, (when compared to) to people born in the later part if the cohort, in the 1940s and 1950s," said Dr. James Niels Rosenquist of the Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the study.

There was.

"People born in the early 1940s or before had no increased risk for higher body mass index or obesity" if they had the "bad" version of FTO, Rosenquist told NBC News.

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Will 'Fat Gene' Get You? Birth Year May Matter

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