The individual studies as well as the results from the overall meta-analysis were corrected for residual inflation of the test statistic using genomic control methods [18]. The overall genomic control lambda (λGC) in the mixed-gender analysis were λGC_WC = 1.09 (λGC_WC_1000 = 1.003 [standardised to a sample size of 1000]) and λGC_WHR = 1.07 (λGC_WC_1000 = 1.002) (see Text S1) [19]. From these data, we identified a set of 76 SNPs (one per independent region of association, based on an arbitrary follow-up P-value threshold of 10−5 in preliminary pre-GC corrected analyses) that showed evidence of association to one or both of the traits (Figure 2). As might have been expected given the strong correlations between measures of central adiposity and BMI, the most significant associations for WC and WHR were observed for SNPs mapping near FTO (rs1421085, WC, P = 3.7×10−20) and MC4R (rs17700144, WC, P = 6.2×10−11). These two markers are highly correlated (r2>0.8) with markers that represent two of the strongest signals for overall adiposity (Table S10) [9]–[10], [12]–[14], [16]–[17],[20].
