The study could help explain exercise’s key role in health.
“The findings provide a molecular mechanism for the link between physical activity and metabolic disease,” explained study co-author Michael Skinner, a biologist at Washington State University, in Pullman.
Scientists have previously found that a majority of identical twins develop different diseases as they get older, even though they have the same genes.
Epigenetics — the study of how your behaviors and environment affect the day-to-day function of genes — may explain that, Skinner said.
“Physical exercise is known to reduce the susceptibility to obesity, but now it looks like exercise through epigenetics is affecting a lot of cell types, many of them involved in metabolic disease,” he noted in a university news release.
The researchers used fitness trackers to gauge the twins’ activity, measured their waistlines and assessed their body mass indexes (or BMI, an estimate of body fat based on height and weight). Participants also answered questions about their lifestyle and neighborhoods.
In many of the twin pairs, the individuals differed in levels of exercise, neighborhood walkability and BMI.
The more physically active siblings had lower signs of metabolic disease, measured by waist size and BMI, the findings showed.
This correlated with differences in their epigenomes, the molecular processes that influence gene expression. More active twins had epigenetic markers that were linked to lowered metabolic syndrome, a condition that can lead to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.
Epigenetics may explain why most identical twins develop different diseases as they age, Skinner said.
“If genetics and DNA sequence were the only driver for biology, then essentially twins should have the same diseases. But they don’t,” said Skinner. “So that means there has to be an environmental impact on the twins that is driving the development of disease.”
The findings were recently published online in Scientific Reports.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on the benefits of being active.
SOURCE: Washington State University, news release, Dec. 6, 2022