Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33308683›Full record

Trial reportSocial science research2021

Peer influence on obesity: Evidence from a natural experiment of a gene-environment interaction.

Yi Li, Guang Guo

Abstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Trial report in Social science research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. CD36 and Its Role in Obesity.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026
    Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Yi LiDepartment of Sociology, University of Macau, Macau, China. Electronic address: yili@um.edu.mo.
Guang GuoDepartment of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA; Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA; Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Funding

Research Services CoreP2CHD050924 · NICHD · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · PI KAREN B GUZZO · 2015 to 2026
$9.6M
NICHD NIH HHS P2C HD050924
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The role of peers in explaining the obesity epidemic is difficult to evaluate, largely due to selection (the tendency of similar individuals to make friends with each other). Our study addresses this selection issue by using data from a natural experiment of randomly assigned college roommates. We investigate whether and how peers, gender, and the FTO gene interactively influenced BMI. We find that women with a weight-prone version of the gene were about three pounds lighter if assigned frequently-exercising roommates than if assigned non-frequently-exercising roommates. However, living with frequently-exercising roommates had little impact for women without the weight-prone version of the gene or for men regardless of genotype. We find that individuals with the weight-prone version of the gene exercised more often when assigned frequently-exercising roommates. This might be a mechanism through which the effect of frequently-exercising roommates worked.

Indexed as

Gene-Environment InteractionPeer InfluenceAlpha-Ketoglutarate-Dependent Dioxygenase FTOBody Mass IndexFemaleHumansMaleObesityStudentsUniversitiesAlpha-Ketoglutarate-Dependent Dioxygenase FTOFTO protein, humanGenderGene-environment interactionNatural experimentObesityPeer influence

Identifiers

PMID33308683
PMCPMC8607809

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

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.