AMY1A

There's variations in our genetic heritage on how we process carbohydrate that could be well measured.

This AMY1, which codes for salivary amylase, the more copy numbers you have, the more amylase you produce when starch hits your mouth, the more insulin sensitive you are.

Um, and you'll see people when they're fed starch have different, uh, glucose responses depending on their copy number.

We can, um...

But one of the things that is being looked at is how much genetics play a role in this.

And one of the genes that's looked at is the AMY1 gene, which controls salivary amylase, the enzyme that builds up in your mouth and your stomach to actually break down starches, and how many copies of that gene people have.

And these genetic studies found that the bottom 10% of people that had this AMY1 copy were were roughly eight times more likely to be classed as obese or overweight than the top 10%.

Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that people are, that's what drives obesity, but certainly an interesting finding in and of itself.

Another branch of research that's worth talking about is when we look at chewing behavior.

But where a diet leans hard on starchy grains for generation after generation, the body seems to lean back.

There's a gene called AMY1 which builds an enzyme called amylase.

You can find it right now in your own saliva, quietly starting to break down starch the moment food touches your tongue.

and populations with a long, deep history of starch-heavy farming tend to carry more copies of that gene than populations that didn't.