Polygenic Prediction of Weight and Obesity Trajectories from Birth to Adulthood.

ABSTRACT: Severe obesity is a rapidly growing global health threat. Although often attributed to unhealthy lifestyle choices or environmental factors, obesity is known to be heritable and highly polygenic; the majority of inherited susceptibility is related to the cumulative effect of many common DNA variants. Here we derive and validate a new polygenic predictor comprised of 2.1 million common variants to quantify this susceptibility and test this predictor in more than 300,000 individuals ranging from middle age to birth. Among middle-aged adults, we observe a 13-kg gradient in weight and a 25-fold gradient in risk of severe obesity across polygenic score deciles. In a longitudinal birth cohort, we note minimal differences in birthweight across score deciles, but a significant gradient emerged in

SUBMITTER: Khera AV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6661115 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature