we selected for further study 29 SNPs that had an odds ratio in the European American panel that was consistent with the direction of the effect observed in the meta-analysis (Methods). We genotyped these SNPs in four large validation (replication) panels: all 29 SNPs were genotyped in the population-based FINRISK97 cohort (n = 7,803), and a subset was genotyped in the population-based KORA S4 (n = 4,130) and PPP (n = 3,402) cohorts and the type 2 diabetes case-control FUSION stage 2 panel (n = 2,466) (Supplementary Tables 3-6 online). Because of logistic and technical issues, not all 29 SNPs could be genotyped in all four DNA panels, thus leading to a loss in power for some of these SNPs in our follow-up strategy. Nevertheless, these combined efforts led to the identification of 12 SNPs with combined P < 5 × 10-7 (using evidence from the meta-analysis and the validation panels except the European American panel, because of its specific ascertainment), a level of significance strongly suggestive of true association (Table 1; detailed association results and LD plots are given in Supplementary Table 7 and Supplementary Fig. 2 online, respectively)3. Of the three loci with P values between 5 ×
