ArticlePLoS genetics2017
Gene-environment interaction study for BMI reveals interactions between genetic factors and physical activity, alcohol consumption and socioeconomic status.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 98 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
98 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 179 citations in OpenAlex.
- Socioeconomic position, genetic susceptibility, and epigenetic profiles in obesity across the life course: a systematic review.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of the Effect of Gene-Lifestyle Interactions on Metabolic-Disease-Related Traits in South Asian Populations.Nutrition reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Interactions between Polygenic Risk of Obesity and Dietary Factors on Anthropometric Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.The Journal of nutrition · 2024Pooled it
- Meta-analytic evidence for a sex-diverging association between alcohol use and body mass index.Scientific reports · 2022Pooled it
- Variance-quantitative trait loci enable systematic discovery of gene-environment interactions for cardiometabolic serum biomarkers.Nature communications · 2022Pooled it
- Population genetic considerations for using biobanks as international resources in the pandemic era and beyond.BMC genomics · 2021Pooled it
- Admixture/fine-mapping in Brazilians reveals a West African associated potential regulatory variant (rs114066381) with a strong female-specific effect on body mass and fat mass indexes.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2021Pooled it
- Genetic Variation and Hot Flashes: A Systematic Review.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2020Pooled it
- A unified method for rare variant analysis of gene-environment interactions.Statistics in medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Identification of genetic loci affecting body mass index through interaction with multiple environmental factors using structured linear mixed model.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Interplay between sports nutrition knowledge, lifestyle factors, and body mass index among regularly exercising university students: a cross-sectional study.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Combinatorial effects of gene dosage, polygenic background and environment on complex traits.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Incorporating polygenic risk scores and social determinants of health across populations: Considerations and best practices in research.American journal of human genetics · 2026Review
- [Elucidating the gene-environment interplay in risk factors for Age-related hearing loss].Lin chuang er bi yan hou tou jing wai ke za zhi = Journal of clinical otorhinolaryngology head and neck surgery · 2026Article
- Moderating the Heritability of Body Mass Index by Age and Sex With Genomic Data.Genetic epidemiology · 2026Article
- Study of the Genetic Basis of Childhood and Adolescent Obesity with Stress Through the Analysis of Multidimensional Data with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Tools.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Article
- Analyzing complex traits and diseases using GxE PRS: genotype-environment interaction in polygenic risk score models.Journal of human genetics · 2025Article
- Ordinal Sparse Neural Networks for Modeling Gene- and Imaging-Environment Interactions.Statistics in medicine · 2025Article
- Dyslexia Polygenic Index and Socio-Economic Status Interaction Effects on Reading Skills in Australia and the United Kingdom.Behavior genetics · 2025Article
- Overweight, Obesity, and Lifestyle Behaviors in Immigrants and Native Children in Madrid-ASOMAD Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
38 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of genetic loci to be associated with body mass index (BMI) and risk of obesity. Genetic effects can differ between individuals depending on lifestyle or environmental factors due to gene-environment interactions. In this study, we examine gene-environment interactions in 362,496 unrelated participants with Caucasian ancestry from the UK Biobank resource. A total of 94 BMI-associated SNPs, selected from a previous GWAS on BMI, were used to construct weighted genetic scores for BMI (GSBMI). Linear regression modeling was used to estimate the effect of gene-environment interactions on BMI for 131 lifestyle factors related to: dietary habits, smoking and alcohol consumption, physical activity, socioeconomic status, mental health, sleeping patterns, as well as female-specific factors such as menopause and childbirth. In total, 15 lifestyle factors were observed to interact with GSBMI, of which alcohol intake frequency, usual walking pace, and Townsend deprivation index, a measure of socioeconomic status, were all highly significant (p = 1.45*10-29, p = 3.83*10-26, p = 4.66*10-11, respectively). Interestingly, the frequency of alcohol consumption, rather than the total weekly amount resulted in a significant interaction. The FTO locus was the strongest single locus interacting with any of the lifestyle factors. However, 13 significant interactions were also observed after omitting the FTO locus from the genetic score. Our analyses indicate that many lifestyle factors modify the genetic effects on BMI with some groups of individuals having more than double the effect of the genetic score. However, the underlying causal mechanisms of gene-environmental interactions are difficult to deduce from cross-sectional data alone and controlled experiments are required to fully characterise the causal factors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.