ONE sachet of tomato ketchup could be the difference between you maintaining a healthy weight and gaining more, an expert has claimed.
Cambridge University geneticist, Dr Gile Yeo, has warned that consuming as little as seven extra calories a day (the equivalent of a ketchup sachet) will eventually lead to extra inches around your waistline in middle age.
The problem, he said, is that our metabolisms start to slow down dramatically when we reach middle age.
In his new book, Gene Eating, he says that on average, we put on 2st 4lbs (15kg) between the ages of 20 and 50.
"The 15kg of weight gained over 30 years is worth about 75,000 calories – or 2,500 extra calories a year, a day's ration of calories if you are a man," Dr Yeo explained.
That, he said, equates to an extra seven calories a day for 30 years.
One in four adults is currently obese in the UK – with experts predicting that half of the UK will be dangerously overweight by 2030.
The striking thing about his findings, Dr Yeo said, is that although we know many of us tend to overeat, we tend to do so modestly – and gain weight very slowly.
As age, our fat-burning capabilities slow down dramatically, meaning that the effects of those extra few calories start to pile up faster.
Our ability to put on weight is partly dependent on our genetics; while everyone's metabolisms slow with age, some of us are more genetically prone to obesity than others.
So surely, the answer is to just get people's DNA tested for their obesity potential, and to ascertain what diets would work for them?
We're not quite there yet, Dr Yeo said.
He claimed that despite the number of DNA diet testing kits currently on the market, there's no current evidence that any of them genuinely work.
Give it another decade or so, and we'll probably start seeing the beginnings of proper gene-based dieting solutions.
So what can we do in the meantime?
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