Gene-by-age effects on BMI from birth to adulthood: the Fels Longitudinal Study.

Objectives: Genome wide association studies have shown 32 loci to influence BMI in European-American adults but replication in other studies is inconsistent and may be attributed to gene-by-age effects. The aims of this study were to determine if the influence of the summed risk score of these 32 loci (GRS) on BMI differed across age from birth to 40 years, and to determine if additive genetic effects other than those in the GRS differed by age.

Methods: Serial measures of BMI were calculated at 0, 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 28 months, and 4, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 30, and 40 years for 1,176 (605 females, 571 males) European-American participants in the Fels Longitudinal Study.

Associations between trunk, leg and total body adiposity with arterial stiffness.

Background: Obesity and arterial stiffness are associated, but fat distribution patterns may be more strongly related to arterial stiffness than general obesity because of the possible increased inflammation associated with increased abdominal adiposity. The aims of this study were to examine whether fat patterning is associated with arterial stiffness, and determine whether these associations are mediated by low-grade inflammation.

Methods: Adult participants from the Fels Longitudinal Study (228 males and 254 females) were assessed for brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (BaPWV) to determine arterial stiffness.

A changing pattern of childhood BMI growth during the 20th century: 70 y of data from the Fels Longitudinal Study.

Background: The BMI distribution shifted upward in the United States between the 1960s and the 1990s, but little is known about secular trends in the pattern of BMI growth, particularly earlier in the century and early in childhood.

Objective: The objective was to examine differences in BMI growth in children born in 1929-1999.

Design: BMI curves from ages 2 to 18 y were produced for 855 European-American children in the Fels Longitudinal Study born in 1929-1953, 1954-1972, and 1973-1999.

Genome-wide linkage scan for quantitative trait loci underlying normal variation in heel bone ultrasound measures.

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) traits are correlated with bone mineral density (BMD), but predict risk for future fracture independent of BMD. Only a few studies, however, have sought to identify specific genes influencing calcaneal QUS measures. The aim of this study was to conduct a genome-wide linkage scan to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) influencing normal variation in QUS traits.