Why you can't get rid of your pot belly

If you can't get rid of your pot belly, no matter how hard you try, blame your Plexin D1 gene. Photo / 123RF

If you can't get rid of your pot belly, no matter how hard you try, blame your Plexin D1 gene.

Scientists believe the gene tells fat to gather around the middle, rather than the bottom and thighs.

In other words, it influences whether someone is an 'apple', with a big tummy, or a 'pear', who widens out below the waist.

It raises the possibility of pills that stop fat from being stored around the waist - meaning an end to pot bellies and muffin tops.

And the benefits wouldn't just be cosmetic.

The discovery of the 'apple-shape' gene is important because being an 'apple' who stores fat around the middle is worse for health than being a 'pear'.

Unlike the fat that pads out pear-shapes, belly fat wraps around the body's vital organs and produces hormones and other chemicals that tamper with blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar levels.

As a result it raises the risk of a host of health problems including heart disease, diabetes and strokes.

To get to the bottom of how fat is stored, the US researchers studied zebra fish, tiny tropical fish whose transparent bodies make it see their inner workings.

By using a dye that turned fat cells fluorescent, they showed that fish without a gene called Plexin D1 stored less fat around their abdomen than usual.

Instead, the fat was stored in more a pear-shaped pattern, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

The fish without apple-shape gene were also better at processing sugar - something that should cut the odds of diabetes.

With the Plexin-1 gene thought to have a similar role in people, the research paves the way for a drug that stops people from growing big bellies.

Researcher Dr James Minchin, of Duke University, in North Carolina, said that this could also be good for health.

- Daily Mail