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Because many psychotropic medications produce large weight gains, psychiatrists have become concerned about obesity in their patients. Earlier studies linked specific genetic variants to high body-mass index (BMI). Now researchers report results from the first large-scale study of the relationship between methylation sites and adiposity. The study used genome databases from European (N=2707) and Asian-Indian (N=2680) populations and analyzed blood samples for CpG methylation sites that increased with higher BMIs.
After replication in population-based studies (N=4874), adiposity was significantly associated with 187 genetic loci in blood; the findings were replicated in adipose tissue. Methylation sites at the loci were heterogeneic (i.e., we…