GSD appears to be strongly associated with MetS, and the more the components of MetS, the higher the prevalence of GSD.

Results: Chinese people experienced greater odds of comorbidities than whites for a given BMI after standardizing for age and sex: 43% for diabetes, 30% for dyslipidemia, 28% for hypertension, 38% for metabolic syndrome, and 48% for hyperuricemia. Comparisons of BMI-mortality associations found that the U-shaped BMI-mortality curve shifted 1-2 kg m 22 to the left in Chinese compared to whites. Compared to whites at BMIs of 25 and 30 kg m 22 , corresponding cutoffs in Chinese were 22.5 and 25.9 kg m 22 in men, and 22.8 and 26.6 kg m 22 in women after both fat and fat distribution were taken into account. Conclusions: Comorbidity, mortality, and body composition data consistently support the use of lower BMI cutoffs in Chinese than those in whites.

Background It has been hypothesized that vitamin D deficiency (VDD) contributes to the development of food sensitization (FS) and then food allergy. However, the epidemiological evidence is conflicting. We aim to examine if cord blood VDD is associated with FS and if such association can be modified by genetic variants in a prospective birth cohort. Methods This study included 649 children who were enrolled at birth and followed from birth onward at the Boston Medical Center. We defined VDD as cord blood 25(OH)D < 11ng/ml, and FS as specific IgE ≥ 0.35kUA/L to any of eight common food allergens in early childhood. We genotyped potentially functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 11 genes known to be involved in regulating IgE and 25(OH)D concentrations. Logistic regressions were used to test the effects of VDD on FS individually and jointly with SNPs. Results Among the 649 children, 44% had VDD and 37% had FS. When examined alone, VDD was not associated with FS. When examined jointly with SNPs, a significant interaction between IL4 gene polymorphism (rs2243250) and VDD (pinteraction=0.003, pFDR=0.10) was found: VDD increased the risk of FS among children carrying CC/CT genotypes (OR=1.79, 95%CI: 1.15–2.77). Similar but weaker interactions were observed for SNPs in MS4A2 (rs512555), FCER1G (rs2070901), and CYP24A1 (rs2762934). When all four SNPs were simultaneously considered, a strong gene-VDD interaction was evident (pinteraction=9×10−6). Conclusions Our data demonstrate that VDD may increase the risk of FS among individuals with certain genotypes, providing evidence of gene-vitamin D interaction on FS.

Maternal obesity is associated with a variety of common diseases in the offspring. One possible underlying mechanism could be maternal obesity induced alterations in DNA methylation. However, this hypothesis is yet to be tested. We performed epigenomic mapping of cord blood among 308 Black mother-infant pairs delivered at term at the Boston Medical Center using the Illumina HumanMethylation27 BeadChip. Linear regression and pathway analyses were conducted to evaluate the associations between DNA methylation levels and prepregnancy maternal BMI (<25, 25–30, ≥30 kg/m2). The methylation levels of 20 CpG sites were associated with maternal BMI at a significance level of P-value <10−4 in the overall sample, and boys and girls, separately. One CpG site remained statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons (FDR corrected P-value = 0.04) and was annotated to a potential cancer gene, ZCCHC10. Some of the other CpG site annotated genes appear to be critical to the development of cancers and cardiovascular diseases (i.e., WNT16, C18orf8, ANGPTL2, SAPCD2, ADCY3, PRR16, ERBB2, DOK2, PLAC1). Significant findings from pathway analysis, such as infectious and inflammatory and lipid metabolism pathways, lends support for the potential impact of maternal BMI on the above stated disorders. This study demonstrates that prepregnancy maternal BMI might lead to alterations in offspring DNA methylation in genes relevant to the development of a range of complex chronic diseases, providing evidence of trans-generational influence on disease susceptibility via epigenetic mechanism.