Here is an interesting paper
Fernandez JR, Shriver MD, Beasley TM, Rafla-Demetrious N, Parra E, Albu J, Nicklas B, Ryan AS, McKeigue PM, Hoggart CL, Weinsier RL, Allison DB. Association of African Genetic Admixture with Resting Metabolic Rate and Obesity Among Women. Obes Res. 2003 Jul;11(7):904-911.
Department of Nutrition Sciences and the Clinical Nutrition Research Center and. Department of Biostatistics, Section on Statistical Genetics, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama. Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania. Obesity Research Center, St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital, Institute of Human Nutrition, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, New York, New York. Section on Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine and Center for Human Genomics, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Department of Medicine, Division of Gerontology at The University of Maryland School of Medicine and The Geriatric Research Educational Clinical Center, Baltimore VA Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland. Epidemiology Unit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom. Deceased.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the role of genetic admixture in explaining phenotypic variation in obesity-related traits in a sample of African-American women (n = 145) and to determine significant associations between obesity traits and admixture genetic markers. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Associations between genetic admixture and BMI, resting metabolic rate, fat mass, fat-free mass, and bone mineral density were tested using linear regression considering the estimation of admixture by 1) a maximum-likelihood approach (MLA) and 2) a Bayesian analysis. RESULTS: Both the conservative MLA and the Bayesian approach support an association between African genetic admixture and BMI. Evidence for the associations of African genetic admixture with fat mass and fat-free mass was supported by the Bayesian analysis; the MLA supported an association with bone mineral density. When the individual ancestry informative markers that were used to estimate admixture were tested for associations with BMI, significant associations were identified in chromosomes 1, 11, and 12. DISCUSSION: These results provide evidence supporting the application of admixture mapping methods to the identification of genes that result in higher levels of obesity among African-American women. Further research is needed to replicate and further explore these findings.
Note: BMI is body mass index.
