You’ve joined the gym. You’ve cut back on your calories and watched your food portions. And yet, no matter what you do, as you continue to age, your weight keeps creeping upwards. For researchers, this phenomenon is known as the age/obesity paradox, and you can take some comfort in knowing you’re not alone. The average weight gain for people from age 20 – 50 is 30 pounds, and for a long time, this has puzzled scientists trying to understand why. Well, there seems to be some good news on the horizon. A team of researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has uncovered an enzyme- DNA-PK- that appears to be a driver of this added weight gain. This discovery has led to the development of an enzyme inhibitor that showed significant results in mice for reducing weight gain and increasing aerobic fitness. Human testing is the next step. So, while this is not permission to eat with abandon or forgo exercise, it should give you hope in the battle of the bulge. To learn more about this research, Read Here.