Genetic predisposition: Sport and Genetics

Why do you have three ice creams a day and don’t have a gram of fat? How does he manage to jump so much? Why are you recovering so well? These are questions that people ask themselves every day. Well, it is true that taking care of yourself and sports training are important keys to answering these questions, but they are not everything.

The potential of genetics is such that today we cannot answer all the questions that cross our minds, but we do know that there are numerous SNPs (genetic variations) associated with obesity. The most studied gene is called FTO and it has been shown that despite having a high predisposition to obesity, the body mass index can be reduced by performing intense exercise.

The same happens when we go to the world of sports. Hard training is essential, but there are people who find it easier to carry out certain sports such as strength, speed, endurance sports … There are numerous studies carried out in this regard in recent years, but there are certain findings that we have known for a long time.

One of the genetic variants associated with resistance was discovered in 1990 when they tried to explain the genetic bases of muscular dystrophy (a group of diseases that cause weakness and progressive degeneration of skeletal muscles). Later, testing genotypes (DNA “letters”) between sick and healthy people found that, surprisingly, certain healthy people had the genotype that seemed to be associated with muscular dystrophy. It was then that they decided to carry out the opposite study: to study the genotype of athletic people. After various genetic studies, the implication of this gene in skeletal muscle was seen, associating the genetic variant with greater resistance and recovery capacity. However, these people have a disadvantage compared to power and speed sports since the ancestral variant provides greater skeletal power.