Exercise response

Positive for most people, but with a lot of genetic variation. Interestingly, a fraction of the population (about 10%) can have a negative health or fitness response to training (see @40 min or so in the video). This professor's company claims to be able to predict exercise response by looking at about 30 gene variants. The talk also has some interesting results concerning high intensity training.

NYTimes: ... That original research, published in a landmark 2010 study, looked into the genetics of why some people respond to endurance exercise so robustly, while others do not. Some lucky men and women take up jogging, for example, and quickly become much more aerobically fit. Others complete the same program and develop little if any additional endurance, as measured by increases in their VO12 max, or their body’s ability to consume and distribute oxygen to laboring muscles.

For the 2010 study, Dr. Timmons and his colleagues genotyped muscle tissue from several groups of volunteers who had completed 6 to 20 weeks of endurance training. They found that about 30 variations in how genes were expressed had a significant effect on how fit people became. The new test looks for those genetic markers in people’s DNA. ...