16p11.2, genotyping data was available for other previously-described population cohorts as follows: the CoLaus prospective population cohort [44] –5,612 white individuals aged 35–75 years randomly selected from the general population in Lausanne, Switzerland; the EGCUT BioBank [45] –2,666 individuals randomly selected from the 48,000 Estonian participants; the deCODE population cohort [46]–36,601 recruited from the whole of Iceland; the SHIP cross-sectional survey cohort [47], [48] –4,070 German citizens from Western Pomerania. In all cases, individuals in the above cohorts were excluded from the analysis if they had previously been shown to carry single-locus obesity variants (e.g. in MC4R); specifically excluded were those carrying the obesity-causing deletion of 593 kb on chromosome 16p11.2 (4 child obesity, 4 adult obesity, 2 bariatric patients, 3 NFBC1966, 1 EGCUT, 18 deCODE, 2 SHIP) [12]; no subject was related to any other subject. All participants or their legal guardians gave written informed consent, and all local ethics committees approved the study protocol. EGCUT is conducted according to Estonian Gene Research Act. For deCODE, all procedures related to this study have been approved by the Data Protection Authority and National Bioethics Committee of Iceland.
