ADIPOQ gene is linked to emotional eating behaviour in young Nigerian adults independent of psychological traits

Awoyemi Abayomi Awofala,Olusegun Emmanuel Ogundele,Khalid Olajide Adekoya

doi:10.1186/s42269-020-00450-5

Awoyemi Abayomi Awofala, Olusegun Emmanuel Ogundele + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s42269-020-00450-5

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Abstract

BackgroundA disturbance in eating behaviour (EB) is the hallmark of patients with eating disorders, and depicts a complex interaction of environmental, psychological and biological factors. In the present study, we propose a model of association of genetic susceptibility—represented by adiponectin (ADIPOQ) gene—with eating behavioural and psychological traits.ResultsEvaluation of the distribution of a polymorphism of the ADIPOQ (rs1501299 G > T) with respect to three EB factors involving cognitive restraint, uncontrolled eating and emotional eating revealed that T-allele in rs1501299 was associated with a decreased susceptibility to emotional EB in codominant (e.g., GG vs. TT) (beta-coefficient [β] = 2.39, 95% Confidence interval [CI] = − 4.02, − 0.76; p value [p] = 0.02), recessive (GG + GT vs. TT) (β = − 2.77, 95% CI = − 3.65, − 0.69; p = 0.005) and additive (GG = 0, GT = 1, TT = 2) (β = − 1.02, 95% CI = − 1.80, − 0.24; p = 0.01) models of inheritance. The presence of the T-allele was not significantly associated with psychological factors involving depression, anxiety and stress. Finally, none of the psychological traits significantly predicted any of the EB factors after controlling for age, body weight and gender.ConclusionsOur data suggest that genetic variant in ADIPOQ locus may influence human emotional eating behaviour.

Highlights

The cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects of eating habit encompass environmental, psychological and biological factors (LaCaille 2013)
The genotyping reaction was performed with Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP)-specific polymerase chain reaction using single-base primer extension technology (Sequenom MassARRAY Genotyping System (Sequenom, San Diego, CA, USA) based on the method described by Yue and colleagues (Yu et al 2015)
Correlational analysis of Body mass index (BMI) with eating behavioural phenotypes and psychological traits revealed uncontrolled eating as the only Three Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ)-R18 scale that was significantly correlated with BMI (r = − 0.27, p = 0.02)

Summary

Introduction

The cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects of eating habit encompass environmental, psychological and biological factors (LaCaille 2013). According to a gene— environmental approach, the different aspect of the eating behaviour can be influenced by genetic variability, explaining a part of the variance of the contribution to eating behaviours and different phenotypical features (Tholin et al 2005). In this view, several genes have been investigated as possible candidates (Grimm and Steinle 2011). We propose a model of association of genetic susceptibility—represented by adiponectin (ADIPOQ) gene—with eating behavioural and psychological traits

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