Clinical characteristics of the GWAS and replication study samples are shown in Table 1. Due to the nature of sample collection, the GWAS and replication cohorts consisted of either community nondiabetic (cohorts 1 and 3), community-based (cohort 6), or diabetic subjects (cohorts 2, 4, and 5). The distributions of BMI were comparable among all cohorts except for higher mean BMI (35.3 kg/m2) and higher prevalence of obesity (74.3%) in the Diabetes Heart Studies (cohort 5). In view of the heterogeneous phenotypes among study cohorts, BMI Z-scores were calculated in sex- and disease-specific strata and then combined separately in each cohort for association analyses.
