Psience Quest

Quote:Similarly, the researchers told some of the people in the diet group, incorrectly, that they carried a gene variant that could reduce how full they felt and nudge them to overeat, or that their variant of the gene should make them feel full quickly and reduce their risk for obesity.

Afterward, the men and women repeated the treadmill or the meal session.

The results of each session were telling. Those people in the exercise group who had been told — almost always inaccurately — that their genes made them unlikely to respond well to exercise tired more quickly now than they had before, and their oxygen uptake and lung capacity were significantly lower.

In the diet group, those people who erroneously thought they had the protective variant of the appetite gene felt fuller after drinking the shake than before and their bodies produced more of a hormone that increases satiety.

In both cases, people’s psychological beliefs about their genetic risks had altered their physiological responses to the testing.