The purpose of this study was to test a GRSS as an alternative approach to replication of association of common polygenic variation with BMI. As hypothesized the MGS-C sample had limited power to replicate individual loci when employing genome-wide significant thresholds even though there was strong a priori evidence of these variants to influence BMI. However, by constructing a GRSS summarizing the total number of risk alleles, the aggregate risk was found to be highly significantly associated with BMI. This study provides evidence of the utility of GRSS as an alternative approach to replication of common polygenic variation in complex traits. Furthermore, the results from the AUC analysis demonstrate meaningful progress towards a screening test that perhaps if used in conjunction with known obesogenic predictors such as physical activity and food selection and intake could identify persons for early environmental or medical intervention to prevent morbid obesity and the associated negative health consequences.
