The SAGE is a comprehensive genome-wide association study (GWAS) using approximately 4,000 unrelated subjects of European and African-American descent. It was funded as part of the Gene Environment Association Studies (GENEVA) initiative supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (dbGaP study accession phs000092.v1.p1). Cases were 1,944 subjects with the primary phenotypes identified as having a lifetime history of alcohol dependence using DSM-IV criteria (ref. 18–19). Controls consisted of 1,965 subjects who had used alcohol, but had never been addicted to alcohol or other illicit substances. In the present study, we used 1030 Caucasian control individuals with self-reported height and weight. Those control individuals diagnosed as having drug dependence due to the likely genetic overlap between alcohol dependence and drug dependence were excluded. Participant characteristics are presented in Supplemental Table 1. There were more females than males in each weight class. The mean and ranges of age are similar in each weight class. Obesity was determined by body mass index (BMI), which was calculated by body weight (in kilograms) divided by squared height (in meters). Based on the magnitude of
