Association between type 2 diabetes loci and measures of fatness.
BACKGROUND
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a metabolic disorder characterized by disturbances of carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism and insulin resistance. The majority of T2D patients are obese and obesity by itself may be a cause of insulin resistance. Our aim was to evaluate whether the recently identified T2D risk alleles are associated with human measures of fatness as characterized with Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DEXA).


RESULTS
Genotypes and phenotypes of approximately 3,000 participants from cross-sectional ERF study were analyzed. Nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in CDKN2AB, CDKAL1, FTO, HHEX, IGF2BP2, KCNJ11, PPARG, SLC30A8 and TCF7L2 were genotyped. We used linear regression to study association between individual SNPs and the combined allelic risk score with body mass index (BMI), fat mass index (FMI), fat percentage (FAT), waist circumference (WC) and waist to hip ratio (WHR). Significant association was observed between rs8050136 (FTO) and BMI (p = 0.003), FMI (p = 0.007) and WC (p = 0.03); fat percentage was borderline significant (p = 0.053). No other SNPs alone or combined in a risk score demonstrated significant association to the measures of fatness.


CONCLUSIONS
From the recently identified T2D risk variants only the risk variant of the FTO gene (rs8050136) showed statistically significant association with BMI, FMI, and WC.
Pecioska
Slavica
S
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Clinical Genetics, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Zillikens
M Carola
MC
Henneman
Peter
P
Snijders
Pieter J
PJ
Oostra
Ben A
BA
van Duijn
Cornelia M
CM
Aulchenko
Yurii S
YS
D015502:Absorptiometry, Photon; D050154:Adiposity / Q000235:genetics*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000483:Alleles; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010641:Phenotype