<p>Your closest pal or colleague may eat the same high-calorie food that you gulp down but know how he/she stays slim and trim while you keep on adding extra kilos around your waist?<br /><br /></p>.<p>The answer lies in our muscles. The way the muscles of the inherently thin work may give them the edge, research reveals.<br /><br />"Daily physical activity is an inherited trait with a strong association to how fat or thin a person is," said Chaitanya K. Gavini, a researcher with Kent State University's school of biomedical sciences.<br /><br />Aerobic capacity is a major predictor of daily physical activity level among humans and laboratory animals.<br /><br />In the study, researchers compared female rats with high aerobic capacity (genetic tendency toward leanness) or low aerobic capacity (genetic tendency toward obesity) to investigate how muscle physiology affects leanness.<br /><br />Though the rats in each group were similar in weight and lean body mass, the rats with a high aerobic capacity were consistently more active than the low capacity rats.<br /><br />While all the rats had similar energy expenditures when at rest, big differences in energy expenditure (calorie burn) occurred during mild exercise.<br /><br />"We found the muscles of rats with lean genes demonstrated 'poor fuel economy', meaning that they burned more calories when performing the same exercise as those with fat genes," Gavini added.<br /><br />This may be owing to more lean rats having higher levels of proteins that support energy expenditure and lower levels of proteins that encourage energy conservation.<br /><br />The research has implications for how we consider metabolism when attempting to prevent or treat obesity, Gavini noted in the study published in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism.</p>
<p>Your closest pal or colleague may eat the same high-calorie food that you gulp down but know how he/she stays slim and trim while you keep on adding extra kilos around your waist?<br /><br /></p>.<p>The answer lies in our muscles. The way the muscles of the inherently thin work may give them the edge, research reveals.<br /><br />"Daily physical activity is an inherited trait with a strong association to how fat or thin a person is," said Chaitanya K. Gavini, a researcher with Kent State University's school of biomedical sciences.<br /><br />Aerobic capacity is a major predictor of daily physical activity level among humans and laboratory animals.<br /><br />In the study, researchers compared female rats with high aerobic capacity (genetic tendency toward leanness) or low aerobic capacity (genetic tendency toward obesity) to investigate how muscle physiology affects leanness.<br /><br />Though the rats in each group were similar in weight and lean body mass, the rats with a high aerobic capacity were consistently more active than the low capacity rats.<br /><br />While all the rats had similar energy expenditures when at rest, big differences in energy expenditure (calorie burn) occurred during mild exercise.<br /><br />"We found the muscles of rats with lean genes demonstrated 'poor fuel economy', meaning that they burned more calories when performing the same exercise as those with fat genes," Gavini added.<br /><br />This may be owing to more lean rats having higher levels of proteins that support energy expenditure and lower levels of proteins that encourage energy conservation.<br /><br />The research has implications for how we consider metabolism when attempting to prevent or treat obesity, Gavini noted in the study published in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism.</p>