The aim of this study was to investigate the possible associations between insertion/deletion (ID) polymorphism in angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) (dbSNP rs 4646994) with the food intake and body composition in the Czech non-obese, obese and extremely obese populations. A total of 453 various-weighted individuals were enrolled in the study and were according to their BMI assigned into following subgroups, such as obese (30 B BMI \ 40), morbidly obese (BMI C40) and nonobese (20 \ BMI \ 30) subjects. Both the obese cases and the non-obese controls underwent the identical subset of standardized examinations (BMI, % body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, skin fold thickness, native dietary composition examined by 7-day food records, etc.). No significant casecontrol differences in genotype distributions or allelic frequencies were observed. There were no differences in genotype frequencies between males and females either. The prevalence of obesity was significantly higher among subjects with the II genotype (42 %) when compared with those with DD (36%) and those with ID (37%) genotypes (P = 0.04). When compared with carbohydrate intake in the whole studied cohort, the odds ratios of carrying the DD allele in the morbidly obese cohort were 0.84 (95% CI 0.34, 2.10, P = 0.17), 0.27 (0.07, 0.98, P = 0.02), and 4.25 (1.44, 12.51, P = 0.005) in those individuals consuming \210, 210-260, and [260 g of carbohydrates/day, respectively. Based on our findings, the ID ACE polymorphism could represent a gene modulator of carbohydrate intake in morbidly obese Czech population; the strong significant effect of DD genotype was observed in the phenotypes of extreme obesity with the highest carbohydrate intake.

Our results indicate that specific genetic variations in the CNR1 gene may act as susceptibility markers for specific dietary composition in the Central-European population.