(mean ± s.e.m.) of variance, compared to 21.6 ± 2.2% explained by all HapMap3 SNPs (31–54% of heritability; Fig. 1a). Furthermore, of 1,909 independent SNPs (pairwise distance >500 kb and r2 < 0.1) included on Metabochip for replication of suggestive BMI associations, 1,458 (76.4%) have directionally consistent effects with our previous GWAS meta-analysis5 and the non-overlapping samples in the current meta-analysis (Extended Data Fig. 2c). On the basis of the significant excess of these directionally consistent observations (sign test P = 2.5 × 10−123), we estimate ~1,007 of the 1,909 SNPs represent true BMI associations.
