You and Your Dog Might Be Getting Fat for the Same Reason

It turns out that, in at least one way, you are very much like a dog. Specifically, a golden retriever, and no, it is not in your enthusiastic yet dimwitted loyalty to your loved ones.

It’s in your fat. Or, rather, it’s in the genes that are responsible for making you obese.

A study from the University of Cambridge showed that when it comes to obesity, Labrador retrievers and human people both share the gene variant DENND1B, which is associated with increased body fat.

The researchers found that labradors with this variant had about eight percent more body fat than those without it. In humans, this gene variant has been found to influence the neural pathways that regulate appetite and energy balance.

The researchers also found four other canine obesity genes, in addition to DENND1B, that have parallels with human genes.

Humans And Labrador Retrievers Share a Gene That Makes Us Fat

One of the study’s co-authors, Natalie Wallis, found that “dogs at high genetic risk of obesity were more interested in food” and that “dogs at high genetic risk of obesity showed signs of having a higher appetite, as has also been shown for people at high genetic risk of obesity.”

The study notes that the ill effects of a genetic predisposition for obesity in dogs can be mitigated by a dog’s owner with regular exercise and strictly controlling the dog’s diet. They’re a lot like us, they’re just not as prone to succumbing to the alluring call of the latest Oreo variant that you’ve just got to try.

Another of the study’s authors, Dr. Eleanor Raffan, argues that anyone with a moral superiority that stems from not being obese should tamp down their arrogance a little bit because you didn’t probably didn’t have the high genetic risk of obesity.

The researchers gathered all of this information by measuring the body fat of dogs that were then given a score that measures their greediness, or how much they beg for food. Saliva samples were used to examine the dog’s DNA.