The associations between genetic variants body composition, and blood pressure in Afro-Caribbean men from Tobago

Prostate cancer is one of the most common malignancy affecting blacks worldwide. Blacks have a higher incidence and prevalence of prostate cancer than Caucasians. Treatment for prostate cancer usually involves androgen deprivation therapy. Even though androgen deprivation therapy has a high efficacy there are many deleterious side effects such as increase in body fat. Consequently, we investigated the association between androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer and the rate of change of percent total body fat in a cohort of Afro-Tobagonian men. Case-control analysis of 1691 men in our study indicated that, men with prostate cancer exposed to ADT had higher increases in percent total body fat over time compared to unexposed men.Likewise, obesity and hypertension disproportionately affects individuals of African descent. These complex diseases are multifactorial in origin and are typically controlled by many genes. Consequently, we investigated the association between ADRB2, body composition and blood pressure. We also investigated the association between AR CAG repeats and body composition. Cross-sectional analysis of 2,584 men in our cohort indicated that, men with shorter AR CAG repeats had higher body fat measurements (DEXA). We found that the direction of the association was opposite what we had anticipated, of men with longer AR CAG repeats having higher body fat measurements. 1,965 men were investigated cross-sectionally to determine the association between ADRB2, body composition and blood pressure. We found no association between ADRB2, DEXA measures of body fat and blood pressure.In our cohort of Afro-Tobagonian men AR CAG repeats and ADRB2 did not show an association with our outcome of interest. Even though we had non-significant findings, other genes should be evaluated to assess if an association exists with body composition and blood pressure in Tobago population. These studies are of public health relevance or importance because they contribute epidemiologic information to the body of scientific inforamtion available especially regarding Tobago men