ReviewObesity (Silver Spring, Md.)2022
Do thrifty genes exist? Revisiting uricase.
Review in Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gut microbiota-mediated uric acid metabolism: Novel insights for developing urate-lowering and anti-gout medications.Pharmaceutical science advances · 2026Review
- Associations of maternal CDKAL1 gene with adverse offspring growth patterns.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Fructose: metabolic signal and modern hazard.Nature metabolism · 2026Review
- The Microbiota and Evolution of Obesity.Endocrine reviews · 2025Review
- Lacticaseibacillus casei JS-2 from 'Jiangshui' Reduces Uric Acid and Modulates Gut Microbiota in Hyperuricemia.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- A systematic framework for understanding the microbiome in human health and disease: from basic principles to clinical translation.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- The Role of Uric Acid in Human Health: Insights from theJournal of personalized medicine · 2023Review
- The fructose survival hypothesis for obesity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Article
- Sugar, salt, immunity and the cause of primary hypertension.Clinical kidney journal · 2023Review
- Could Alzheimer's disease be a maladaptation of an evolutionary survival pathway mediated by intracerebral fructose and uric acid metabolism?The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2023Review
- Inhibition of Succinate Dehydrogenase by Pesticides (SDHIs) and Energy Metabolism.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Sixty years ago, the geneticist James Neel proposed that the epidemics of obesity and diabetes today may have evolutionary roots. Specifically, he suggested that our ancestors may have accumulated mutations during periods of famine that provided a survival advantage at that time. However, the presence of this "thrifty genotype" in today's world, where food is plentiful, would predispose us to obesity and diabetes. The "thrifty gene" hypothesis, attractive to some, has been challenged over the years. The authors have previously postulated that the loss of the uricase gene, resulting in a rise in serum and intracellular uric acid levels, satisfies the criteria of a thrifty genotype mutation. This paper reviews and brings up-to-date the evidence supporting the hypothesis and discusses the current arguments that challenge this hypothesis. Although further studies are needed to test the hypothesis, the evidence supporting a loss of uricase as a thrifty gene is substantial and supports a role for evolutionary biology in the pathogenesis of the current obesity and diabetes epidemics.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.