Anna Viitasalo, Theresia M Schnurr, Niina Pitkänen, Mette Hollensted, Tenna R H Nielsen, Katja Pahkala, Mustafa Atalay, Mads V Lind, Sami Heikkinen, Christine Frithioff-Bøjsøe, Cilius E Fonvig, Niels Grarup, Mika Kähönen, Germán D Carrasquilla, Anni Larnkjaer, Oluf Pedersen, Kim F Michaelsen, Timo A Lakka, Jens-Christian Holm, Terho Lehtimäki, Olli Raitakari, Torben Hansen, Tuomas O Kilpeläinen
BACKGROUND: Mendelian randomization studies in adults suggest that abdominal adiposity is causally associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease in adults, but its causal effect on cardiometabolic risk in children remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to study the causal relation of abdominal adiposity with cardiometabolic risk factors in children by applying Mendelian randomization. METHODS: We constructed a genetic risk score (GRS) using variants previously associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI (WHRadjBMI) and examined its associations with cardiometabolic factors by linear regression and Mendelian randomization in a meta-analysis of 6 cohorts, including 9895 European children and adolescents aged 3-17 y...
November 1, 2019: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition