The genetic background of obesity and its treatment with bariatric surgery

Obesity is a frequent metabolic disease that causes many other health and socioeconomic complications. Obesity arises due to excessive energy intake and decrease in energy expenditure, which is a conseqence of contemporary lifestyle. Moreover, obesity has a strong genetic component. Common obesity is polygenic, multifactorial disease, in which individual genes interact with each other and with environmental factors. Genome-wide association studies, conducted between 2006-09, led to the discovery of dozens of gene loci that predispose individuals to obesity. The strongest signals were registered for polymorphisms in FTO (fat mass and obesity-associated) and near a gene MC4R (melanocortin 4 receptor). However, the contributions of these variations on the phenotype of obesity are very small, therefore, it is necessary to validate the results of such robust studies. It is very important to uncover the effects of genetic variants for understanding the molecular mechanisms of energy metabolism. The studies presented in this thesis refer about the impact of polymorphisms in selected genes on anthropometric and metabolic parameters of the patients of the Institute of Endocrinology and of healthy volunteers who underwent functional tests. Our cohort includes a representative sample of Czech children (COPAT..