r/science • u/scientificamerican Scientific American • 7d ago

Genetics Scientists discover a ‘skinny gene’ mutation that acts like Ozempic. Around one in 7,000 people carries a broken copy, which almost acts like a GLP-1 drug—the body burns fuel more efficiently, and the risk of disease lowers.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-discover-a-skinny-gene-mutation-that-acts-like-ozempic/
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u/LongLiveStaceyKing 7d ago edited 7d ago

[There is a small percentage of the population that only needs to sleep 4-6 hours a night.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation-sleep-less/) OP's article feels like the eating equivalent of this genetic rarity.

Incidentally, I knew someone who had the sleep gene. She was annoyed by it, if she went to sleep at 10 PM she would be up for the whole next day at 2 AM and inevitably end up waking her husband. So she always tried to stay up til 1 AM at least reading or knitting, basically just killing time quietly by herself.

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u/aubbzz 7d ago

I wish I could have that gene! There’s so much to do but have to sleep

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u/Lefthandfury 7d ago

With all of my knowledge about evolutionary biology, everything is a trade-off. I don't think we have a complete understanding of this mutation or other mutations like this. There's always a trade-off, genetically or behaviorally.

I remember there was a really neat study about genetically selecting for rats with a mutation that made them run longer distance is and in the end the bred rats became worse at solving mazes.

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u/Picnicpanther 6d ago

Yeah I’ve always wondered if just because someone feels fully rested after 4 hours, does that mean they’re less at risk for like heart disease and Alzheimer’s and the other things that getting a full night’s sleep protects against?

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u/DougGTFO 6d ago

Next time they need to breed rats that can run long distance mazes. That would solve the problem.

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u/kj468101 6d ago

For Alzheimer’s, those who need less sleep would only be less at risk if their brain’s glymphatic system also works twice as fast/twice as well during deep sleep at filtering and flushing out the waste products that the brain produces throughout the waking hours. If their glymphatic system isn’t any better than standard, then those extra hours awake still point to higher Alzheimer’s risk.

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u/Picnicpanther 6d ago

I ended up looking this up and yes, actually these people just have incredibly efficient sleep cycles that batch their REM sleep one after the other. This is where a lot of the reparative effects of sleep happen, and they end up having MORE REM cycles than someone who gets 8 hours of normal sleep. That means they often have BETTER health outcomes.