Influence of dopamine receptor gene on eating behaviour and obesity in Malaysia

Abstract Purpose Obesity is still an issue worldwide with a high prevalence rate in spite of countless health awareness campaigns being held by both government and non-profit organisations. This issue is also faced in Malaysia. Thus, this is indeed to study on the risk factor of obesity, especially at the genetic aspect of eating behaviour which is still lacking and inconclusive. This study was to investigate the influence of dopamine type 2 receptors (DRD2) gene variants (ANKK1/DRD2 Taq1A, DRD2 Taq1B and DRD2 Taq1D) on eating behaviours [cognitive restraint eating (CR), emotional eating (EE) and uncontrolled eating (UE)] as well as to obesity. Methods The study consisted of 394 subjects (125 males and 269 females) who studied or worked in University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia. Eating behaviour scores were assessed by using the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18 (TFEQ-R18). Body mass index (BMI) of the participants was taken to evaluate obesity status. Genotyping of Taq1 gene polymorphisms was carried out using Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) using the genomic DNAs extracted from mouthwash samples. Results There is no significant association between DRD2 gene variants with obesity (p \u003e .05). However, ANKK1/DRD2 Taq1A gene polymorphism demonstrated a significant difference in EE score (p   .05). Conclusions This study postulated that ANKK1/DRD2 Taq1A gene variant might have an influential effect on emotional eating among Malaysian adults. Besides, findings demonstrated no association of dopamine receptor gene variants with obesity. However, the role of eating behaviour in leading to obesity was yet inconclusive, and further study is required.