We compared the effects of our 97 BMI-associated SNPs between the sexes, between ethnicities, and across several cross-sections of our data (Supplementary Tables 4–11 and Extended Data Fig. 4). Two previously identified loci, near SEC16B (P = 5.2 × 10−5) and ZFP64 (P = 9.1 × 10−5), showed evidence of heterogeneity between men and women. Both have stronger effects in women (Supplementary Table 10). Two SNPs, near NEGR1 (P = 9.1 × 10−5) and PRKD1 (P = 1.9 × 10−5), exhibited significant evidence for heterogeneity of effect between European- and African-descent samples, and one SNP, near GBE1 (P = 1.3 × 10−4), exhibited evidence for heterogeneity between European and east Asian individuals (Supplementary Table 9). These findings may reflect true heterogeneity at these loci, but are most likely due to linkage disequilibrium (LD) differences across ancestries. Effect estimates for 79% of BMI-associated SNPs in African-descent samples (P = 9.2 × 10−9) and 91% in east Asian samples (P = 1.8 × 10−15) showed directional consistency with our European-only analyses. These results suggest that common BMI-associated SNPs have comparable effects across
