Association of TCF7L2 and ADIPOQ with Body Mass Index, Waist-Hip Ratio, and Systolic Blood Pressure in an Endogamous Ethnic Group of India

Despite the increasing burden of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and its established association with anthropometric and physiological traits as a risk factor, genetic studies focusing on the association of T2D-related genes with quantitative traits like body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), and systolic blood pressure (SBP) are only a few for western populations and rare for Indian populations. The present study tested the association of TCF7L2, HHEX, KCNJ11, and ADIPOQ with BMI, SBP, and WHR in men and women of the Aggarwal population of India and found a differential association of TCF7L2 (rs7903146, rs4506565, and rs12256372) and ADIPOQ (rs2241766 and rs1501299) genes with increasing BMI, SBP, and WHR between the two sexes. We conclude that TCF7L2 and ADIPOQ together might play an important role in explaining these traits and to understand the biological and genetic mechanisms underlying T2D, and the role of other T2D genes must also be evaluated with these continuous traits.