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Abstract
Over 80% of African-American (AA) women are overweight or obese. A large racial disparity between AA and European-Americans (EA) in obesity rates exists among women, but curiously not among men. Although socio-economic and/or cultural factors may partly account for this race-by-sex interaction, the potential involvement of genetic factors has not yet been investigated. Among 2814 self-identified AA in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, we estimated each individual's degree of West-African genetic ancestry using 3437 ancestry informative markers. We then tested whether sex modifies the association between West-African genetic ancestry and body mass index (BMI), waist-circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), adjusting for income and education levels, and examined associations of ancestry with the phenotypes separately in males and females. We replicated our findings in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (n = 1611 AA). In both studies, we find that West-African ancestry is negatively associated with obesity, especially central obesity, among AA men, but not among AA women (pinteraction = 4.14 × 10−5 in pooled analysis of WHR). In conclusion, our results suggest that the combination of male gender and West-African genetic ancestry is associated with protection against central adiposity, and suggest that the large racial disparity that exists among women, but not men, may be at least partly attributed to genetic factors.
Highlights
In the United States, African Americans (AA) exhibit higher rates of overweight and obesity
To help further understand if genetic factors may play a role in the large racial disparity among women, and the relatively small racial disparity among men, we examined the interaction of West-African ancestry (WAA) with sex on body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in two cohorts of AA
In addition to mean age being higher in MultiEthnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), levels of income, education, BMI, and WC are higher in MESA
Summary
In the United States, African Americans (AA) exhibit higher rates of overweight and obesity. Several studies have shown that WAA and AA race are associated with a lower body fat percentage, including visceral fat (Yanovski et al, 1996; Gower et al, 1999; Beasley et al, 2009; Cardel et al, 2011) Some of these studies examined only women, or only BMI, or did not examine sex differences in the association between WAA and obesity phenotypes. A recent study by Goonesekera et al (2015) reported a stronger (positive) association between WAA and BMI, percent body fat, and waist circumference (WC) among women compared to men in a cohort study of Boston residents, and a stronger positive association between WAA and BMI among less educated women These findings are consistent with the epidemiological pattern described above, and deserving of further examination
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