1. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(author)
-
A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
-
In: eLIFE. - 2050-084X. ; 5
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.522.7) and 16.5 cm (13.319.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
|
|
2. |
- Bentham, James, et al.
(author)
-
A century of trends in adult human height
- 2016
-
In: eLIFE. - : eLife Sciences Publications Ltd. - 2050-084X. ; 5
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5–22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3– 19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8– 144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries.
|
|
3. |
|
|
4. |
- Joshi, Peter K, et al.
(author)
-
Directional dominance on stature and cognition in diverse human populations
- 2015
-
In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 523:7561, s. 459-462
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Homozygosity has long been associated with rare, often devastating, Mendelian disorders, and Darwin was one of the first to recognize that inbreeding reduces evolutionary fitness. However, the effect of the more distant parental relatedness that is common in modern human populations is less well understood. Genomic data now allow us to investigate the effects of homozygosity on traits of public health importance by observing contiguous homozygous segments (runs of homozygosity), which are inferred to be homozygous along their complete length. Given the low levels of genome-wide homozygosity prevalent in most human populations, information is required on very large numbers of people to provide sufficient power. Here we use runs of homozygosity to study 16 health-related quantitative traits in 354,224 individuals from 102 cohorts, and find statistically significant associations between summed runs of homozygosity and four complex traits: height, forced expiratory lung volume in one second, general cognitive ability and educational attainment (P < 1 × 10(-300), 2.1 × 10(-6), 2.5 × 10(-10) and 1.8 × 10(-10), respectively). In each case, increased homozygosity was associated with decreased trait value, equivalent to the offspring of first cousins being 1.2 cm shorter and having 10 months' less education. Similar effect sizes were found across four continental groups and populations with different degrees of genome-wide homozygosity, providing evidence that homozygosity, rather than confounding, directly contributes to phenotypic variance. Contrary to earlier reports in substantially smaller samples, no evidence was seen of an influence of genome-wide homozygosity on blood pressure and low density lipoprotein cholesterol, or ten other cardio-metabolic traits. Since directional dominance is predicted for traits under directional evolutionary selection, this study provides evidence that increased stature and cognitive function have been positively selected in human evolution, whereas many important risk factors for late-onset complex diseases may not have been.
|
|
5. |
- Locke, Adam E, et al.
(author)
-
Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology.
- 2015
-
In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 518:7538, s. 197-401
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Obesity is heritable and predisposes to many diseases. To understand the genetic basis of obesity better, here we conduct a genome-wide association study and Metabochip meta-analysis of body mass index (BMI), a measure commonly used to define obesity and assess adiposity, in up to 339,224 individuals. This analysis identifies 97 BMI-associated loci (P < 5 × 10(-8)), 56 of which are novel. Five loci demonstrate clear evidence of several independent association signals, and many loci have significant effects on other metabolic phenotypes. The 97 loci account for ∼2.7% of BMI variation, and genome-wide estimates suggest that common variation accounts for >20% of BMI variation. Pathway analyses provide strong support for a role of the central nervous system in obesity susceptibility and implicate new genes and pathways, including those related to synaptic function, glutamate signalling, insulin secretion/action, energy metabolism, lipid biology and adipogenesis.
|
|
6. |
- Marouli, Eirini, et al.
(author)
-
Rare and low-frequency coding variants alter human adult height
- 2017
-
In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 542:7640, s. 186-190
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Height is a highly heritable, classic polygenic trait with approximately 700 common associated variants identified through genome-wide association studies so far. Here, we report 83 height-associated coding variants with lower minor-allele frequencies (in the range of 0.1-4.8%) and effects of up to 2 centimetres per allele (such as those in IHH, STC2, AR and CRISPLD2), greater than ten times the average effect of common variants. In functional follow-up studies, rare height increasing alleles of STC2 (giving an increase of 1-2 centimetres per allele) compromised proteolytic inhibition of PAPP-A and increased cleavage of IGFBP-4 in vitro, resulting in higher bioavailability of insulin-like growth factors. These 83 height-associated variants overlap genes that are mutated in monogenic growth disorders and highlight new biological candidates (such as ADAMTS3, IL11RA and NOX4) and pathways (such as proteoglycan and glycosaminoglycan synthesis) involved in growth. Our results demonstrate that sufficiently large sample sizes can uncover rare and low-frequency variants of moderate-to-large effect associated with polygenic human phenotypes, and that these variants implicate relevant genes and pathways.
|
|
7. |
- Shungin, Dmitry, et al.
(author)
-
New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.
- 2015
-
In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 518:7538, s. 187-378
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms.
|
|
8. |
- Turcot, Valerie, et al.
(author)
-
Protein-altering variants associated with body mass index implicate pathways that control energy intake and expenditure in obesity
- 2018
-
In: Nature Genetics. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 50:1, s. 26-41
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >250 loci for body mass index (BMI), implicating pathways related to neuronal biology. Most GWAS loci represent clusters of common, noncoding variants from which pinpointing causal genes remains challenging. Here we combined data from 718,734 individuals to discover rare and low-frequency (minor allele frequency (MAF) < 5%) coding variants associated with BMI. We identified 14 coding variants in 13 genes, of which 8 variants were in genes (ZBTB7B, ACHE, RAPGEF3, RAB21, ZFHX3, ENTPD6, ZFR2 and ZNF169) newly implicated in human obesity, 2 variants were in genes (MC4R and KSR2) previously observed to be mutated in extreme obesity and 2 variants were in GIPR. The effect sizes of rare variants are similar to 10 times larger than those of common variants, with the largest effect observed in carriers of an MC4R mutation introducing a stop codon (p.Tyr35Ter, MAF = 0.01%), who weighed similar to 7 kg more than non-carriers. Pathway analyses based on the variants associated with BMI confirm enrichment of neuronal genes and provide new evidence for adipocyte and energy expenditure biology, widening the potential of genetically supported therapeutic targets in obesity.
|
|
9. |
- Bhatt, Deepak L., et al.
(author)
-
Rationale, design and baseline characteristics of the effect of ticagrelor on health outcomes in diabetes mellitus patients Intervention study
- 2019
-
In: Clinical Cardiology. - : Wiley. - 0160-9289 .- 1932-8737. ; 42:5, s. 498-505
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the setting of prior myocardial infarction, the oral antiplatelet ticagrelor added to aspirin reduced the risk of recurrent ischemic events, especially, in those with diabetes mellitus. Patients with stable coronary disease and diabetes are also at elevated risk and might benefit from dual antiplatelet therapy. The Effect of Ticagrelor on Health Outcomes in diabEtes Mellitus patients Intervention Study (THEMIS, NCT01991795) is a Phase 3b randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial of ticagrelor vs placebo, on top of low dose aspirin. Patients >= 50 years with type 2 diabetes receiving anti-diabetic medications for at least 6 months with stable coronary artery disease as determined by a history of previous percutaneous coronary intervention, bypass grafting, or angiographic stenosis of >= 50% of at least one coronary artery were enrolled. Patients with known prior myocardial infarction (MI) or stroke were excluded. The primary efficacy endpoint is a composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke. The primary safety endpoint is Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction major bleeding. A total of 19 220 patients worldwide have been randomized and at least 1385 adjudicated primary efficacy endpoint events are expected to be available for analysis, with an expected average follow-up of 40 months (maximum 58 months). Most of the exposure is on a 60 mg twice daily dose, as the dose was lowered from 90 mg twice daily partway into the study. The results may revise the boundaries of efficacy for dual antiplatelet therapy and whether it has a role outside acute coronary syndromes, prior myocardial infarction, or percutaneous coronary intervention.
|
|
10. |
- de Mello, Vanessa D., et al.
(author)
-
Indolepropionic acid and novel lipid metabolites are associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study
- 2017
-
In: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 7
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Wide-scale profiling technologies including metabolomics broaden the possibility of novel discoveries related to the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes (T2D). By applying non-targeted metabolomics approach, we investigated here whether serum metabolite profile predicts T2D in a well-characterized study population with impaired glucose tolerance by examining two groups of individuals who took part in the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study (DPS); those who either early developed T2D (n = 96) or did not convert to T2D within the 15-year follow-up (n = 104). Several novel metabolites were associated with lower likelihood of developing T2D, including indole and lipid related metabolites. Higher indolepropionic acid was associated with reduced likelihood of T2D in the DPS. Interestingly, in those who remained free of T2D, indolepropionic acid and various lipid species were associated with better insulin secretion and sensitivity, respectively. Furthermore, these metabolites were negatively correlated with low-grade inflammation. We replicated the association between indolepropionic acid and T2D risk in one Finnish and one Swedish population. We suggest that indolepropionic acid, a gut microbiota-produced metabolite, is a potential biomarker for the development of T2D that may mediate its protective effect by preservation of alpha-cell function. Novel lipid metabolites associated with T2D may exert their effects partly through enhancing insulin sensitivity.
|
|