title: Candidate gene study for smoking, alcohol use, and body weight in a sample of pregnant women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Prenatal smoking, alcohol use, and obesity have significant effects on maternal and fetal health. However, not much is known about the genetic contributions to these risk factors among pregnant women. We evaluate the associations between several candidate genes and smoking, alcohol use, pre-pregnancy body weight, and weight gain during pregnancy in a sample of pregnant women.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study analyzes a sample of about 1900 mothers from the Danish National Birth Cohort. We test the association between 1450 SNPs in/near 117 genes/loci and various risk factor measures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Only a few SNPs in FTO were significantly associated with pre-pregnancy obesity and body mass index (4 and 2 SNPs, respectively) after SNP-level correction for multiple testing. A few loci were significantly related to various smoking measures (any smoking, quitting and cigarette number) with gene/locus-level correction for multiple testing, but not after SNP-level correction. Similarly, some loci were significant for the alcohol measures at the gene/locus-level but not at SNP-level correction.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study suggests that the majority of the evaluated candidate genes may not play an important role in influencing these risk factors among pregnant women, highlighting the importance of other genetic factors and non-genetic contributors to their etiology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Policy and.
authors.forename: George L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Wehby
authors.forename: Kaitlin N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Prater
authors.forename: Kelli K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Ryckman
authors.forename: Colleen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kummet
authors.forename: Jeffrey C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Murray
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000235:genetics*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight / Q000235:genetics*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003718:Denmark; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D055106:Genome-Wide Association Study; D006801:Humans; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009765:Obesity / Q000235:genetics; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000235:genetics; D012907:Smoking / Q000235:genetics*; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers
keywords: Child health; fetal health; maternal health; pre-pregnancy weight; prenatal risks