Body-mass index and diabetes risk in 57 low-income and middle-income countries: a cross-sectional study of nationally representative, individual-level data in 685 616 adults.

Background: The prevalence of overweight, obesity, and diabetes is rising rapidly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), but there are scant empirical data on the association between body-mass index (BMI) and diabetes in these settings.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we pooled individual-level data from nationally representative surveys across 57 LMICs. We identified all countries in which a WHO Stepwise Approach to Surveillance (STEPS) survey had been done during a year in which the country fell into an eligible World Bank income group category.

Global Genetic Heterogeneity in Adaptive Traits.

Understanding the genetic architecture of complex traits is a major objective in biology. The standard approach for doing so is genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which aim to identify genetic polymorphisms responsible for variation in traits of interest. In human genetics, consistency across studies is commonly used as an indicator of reliability.