ABSTRACT
As the sugar intake of Malaysians is one of the highest in the Asia Pacific region, we wanted to investigate how this high prevalence of ‘sweet tooth’ is influenced by biological determinants like age, gender, ethnicity and Body Mass Index (BMI). Therefore, this study was to determine the demographic and BMI differences of preference, intake frequency and craving of a list of sweet beverages and food among Malaysian subjects. Convenience sampling was performed around Kuala Lumpur, with informed consents, involving 367 multi-ethnic subjects (163 males, 204 females; 83 Malays, 201 Chinese, 83 Indians; 209 lean, 158 overweight). Demographics and anthropometric measurements were taken and questionnaire on the preference/frequency/craving of a list of 22 sweet food and beverages with a 7 point hedonic scale (from 1= very unpleasant/never/never crave to 7 = very pleasant/at least once a day/ always crave) was performed. Females significantly preferred more, took less frequently but had equal craving of sweet foods compared to males. Lean subjects and those <25 years showed significantly higher preference, intake frequency and craving of sweet foods. The ethnic differences in rating the preference, intake frequency and cravings seemed to be food-specific and culturally-related, where overall, ethnic Chinese had significantly higher intake frequency but lesser craving of sweet foods compared to Malays and Indians. Understanding the demographic and anthropometric factors that may affect the preference, intake frequency and craving of certain sweet foods can help to plan for strategies to prevent the detrimental health burden of high sugar intake among Malaysians.
ABSTRACT
The pandemic of obesity is of great concern as its associated co-morbidities are devastating; causing lifelong burden to individual’s health and is economically costly to a country. Factors that lead to obesity are a combination of environmental and genetic factors. The Pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) gene resides in chromosome 2p23.3, and its protein is composed of 241 amino acids which is responsible for the production of polyhormones that regulate appetite and food intake. The study aimed to investigate the prevalence of the RsaI single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) site in the 5’-untranslated region (UTR) of POMC and its possible association with obesity among 302 multi-ethnic Malaysian subjects (142 obese, 160 non-obese; 120 males, 182 females) from the Kampar Health Clinic. Subjects were recruited by convenience sampling with informed consent and socio-demographic data as well as anthropometric measurements were taken. Subjects were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction - restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis using DNA extracted from blood. The distribution of the RsaI genotypes was significantly different among the different ethnicities, but the mutated RsaI (- / -) genotype was rare as it only occurred in 8.9% of the subjects. With the frequency of the RsaI (-) allele of 0.31, it was associated with the percentage of skeletal muscles (p<0.05), but not with obesity, gender, ethnicity and related anthropometric measurements. In conclusion, the 5’-UTR RsaI SNP in POMC may not be associated with obesity in the Kampar Health Clinic cohort; however, it could lead to the down-regulation of skeletal muscle build-up of up to 0.71%.