Research

Hormonal

Rare deleterious variants in six specific effector genes (MC4R, PCSK1, POMC, CALCR, BSN, and CORO1A) are significantly associated with BMI at the population level, with CORO1A being a newly identified genetic risk factor for obesity.

Genetic testing can identify individuals with rare variants in genes like CORO1A, MC4R, or PCSK1 who are at higher risk for severe obesity. Knowing this early can guide personalized prevention strategies, such as early lifestyle interventions or targeted pharmacological therapies, before significant weight gain occurs.

StrongSupportsHIGH confidence
Rare deleterious variants in six of these (MC4R, PCSK1, POMC, CALCR, BSN and CORO1A) associate with BMI at population level, and CORO1A has not been linked previously to BMI.
John A. Tadross et al. · Nature · 2025

Why this rating

Based on exome-sequencing data from 419,692 UK Biobank participants, providing robust population-level statistical evidence.

Source

A comprehensive spatio-cellular map of the human hypothalamus

John A. Tadross et al. · Nature · 2025

DOI 10.1038/s41586-024-08504-8

mechanism_only · n=8Cited 70×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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