![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pretty-young-smiling-woman-sports-136655293.jpg\")
About one in 7,000 people have a mutation that makes their body burn calories much faster, protecting from a number of diseases. mary_markevich \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\nBorn thin? Slim chance.<\/p>\n
While some people agonize over tracking every calorie to maintain their figures, others seem to have won the genetic lottery with a naturally speedy metabolism \u2014 and all the health benefits that come with it.<\/p>\n
Now, scientists have found a specific \u201cskinny gene\u201d mutation that\u2019s keeping about one in 7,000 people naturally svelte.<\/p>\n
And if you\u2019re thinking, \u201cWell, isn\u2019t that just so nice for them?\u201d \u2014 this research could open the door to another kind of drug therapy that could one day reproduce the effects in the rest of us.<\/p>\n
About one in 7,000 people have a mutation that makes their body burn calories much faster, protecting from a number of diseases. mary_markevich \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
Publishing in the journal Nature<\/a>, researchers at looked at genetic data from over a million people across three continents to see if there were any mutations that influenced metabolism, or how our bodies convert food to energy.<\/p>\n They found our FNIP1 gene plays a role. We evolved this gene to slow down calorie burning when food is plentiful, storing it to survive food scarcity down the road. <\/p>\n When it\u2019s turned off, it burns calories faster rather than storing them for use later. And people with this mutation have their FNIP1 genes turned off. <\/p>\n \u201cNowadays, we are living in a very calorie-rich environment, and historically there\u2019s no precedent for this,\u201d Luca Lotta, a senior author on the study, told Scientific American<\/a>. \u201cThese incredibly rare mutations, which might have been unfavorable for many millennia, are now favorable to the body.\u201d<\/p>\n We get two copies of the gene \u2014 one from each parent \u2014 and about 150 people examined had one copy turned off.<\/p>\n These lucky few had lower weight, body fat and liver fat \u2014 and also developed more lean muscle.<\/p>\n There are some other serious health upsides, including lower cholesterol, with a drastically decreased risk for a slew of conditions<\/a>. These include heart attack, stroke, kidney disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.<\/p>\n Why not turn off both copies? That can cause major issues, as they help cells direct energy use and play a critical role in the immune system<\/a>. It could also affect the heart<\/a>.<\/p>\n A possible drug in the future<\/p>\n Researchers in the study also looked at mice to see if they could increase their metabolism by turning off a copy of FNIP1.<\/p>\n They found despite how much they ate, these mice avoided gaining weight and fat \u2014 and still had more lean muscle. They also had more sensitivity to insulin (reducing risk of diabetes) and lower fat in the liver.<\/p>\n This shows some promise, though researchers note it\u2019s unclear whether this is safe to try in humans at this point. Any therapy would be \u201cmany years away,\u201d Lotta said.<\/p>\n Gene reprogramming has shown some promise for weight loss \u2014 but still only in mice. In 2025, researchers tried a one-time injection<\/a> to change GLP-1 production in the body, hoping to provide an alternative to repeated injections and bad side effects from the traditional jab.<\/p>\n![\"Close-up](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/close-up-woman-injecting-glp-136654842.jpg\")
In the future, this gene could play a role in a therapy that might be an alternative to GLP-1s. Kateryna \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n