Genetics of Central Obesity and Body Fat

Abstract

Abstract Abdominal obesity, also termed visceral obesity, has been closely related to a variety of metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and total mortality. The most widely used measures for abdominal obesity include waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), which are determined by both environmental and genetic factors. Classic genetic studies such as twin studies and family studies have indicated that a high proportion of variance in WC or WHR is determined by genetic components. While linkage studies and candidate-gene-based association studies are largely unsuccessful in identification of genetic loci for abdominal obesity, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have detected nearly 20 loci associated with WC or WHR, mostly in Caucasians. The genetic effects on abdominal obesity show an apparent sex-specific fashion, with stronger effects observed in women. Recently, emerging evidence suggests environmental factors such as lifestyle (e.g., physical activity, sedentary lifestyle) and diet (e.g., sugar-sweetened beverages) may modify genetic susceptibility to obesity, and other changes such as epigenetic alterations may also be involved in modulation of the relation between the human genome and abdominal obesity.