Analysis of FTO gene variants with obesity and glucose homeostasis measures in the multiethnic Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Study cohort

Previous studies have replicated the association of variants within FTO (fat mass- and obesity-associated) intron 1 with obesity and adiposity quantitative traits in populations of European ancestry. Non-European populations, however, have not been so intensively studied. The goal of this investigation was to examine the association of FTO single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), prominent in the literature in a multiethnic sample of non-Hispanic White American (n = 458), Hispanic American (n = 373) and African American (n = 288) subjects from the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Study (IRAS). This cohort provides the unique ability to evaluate how variation within FTO influences measures of adiposity and glucose homeostasis in three different ethnicities, which were ascertained and examined using a common protocol