Genetic Predisposition to Central Obesity and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: Two Independent Cohort Studies
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Abdominal obesity is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D). We aimed to examine the association between the genetic predisposition to central obesity, assessed by the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) genetic score, and T2D risk.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The current study included 2,591 participants with T2D and 3,052 participants without T2D of European ancestry from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). Genetic predisposition to central obesity was estimated using a genetic score based on 14 established loci for the WHR.
RESULTS We found that the central obesity genetic score was linearly related to higher T2D risk. Results were similar in the NHS (women) and HPFS (men). In combined results, each point of the central obesity genetic score was associated with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.04 (95% CI 1.01–1.07) for developing T2D, and the OR was 1.24 (1.03–1.45) when comparing extreme quartiles of the genetic score after multivariate adjustment.
CONCLUSIONS The data indicate that genetic predisposition to central obesity is associated with higher T2D risk. This association is mediated by central obesity.
Footnotes
This article contains Supplementary Data online at http://care.diabetesjournals.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.2337/dc14-3084/-/DC1.
- Received December 29, 2014.
- Accepted March 18, 2015.
- © 2015 by the American Diabetes Association. Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered.
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