across the US [44]. All studies collected self-identified racial/ethnic group via questionnaire. We selected all AA participants from ARIC, HyperGEN, and GenNet for genotyping. In MEC, a subset of AAs was selected based on availability of biomarker or as controls for nested case-control studies. WHI included all AAs who provided consent for DNA analysis. We excluded underweight (BMI<18.5 kg/m2) and extremely overweight (BMI>70 kg/m2) individuals with the assumption that these extremes could be attributable to data coding errors, an underlying illness or possibly to a familial syndrome and hence, a rare mutation. We also limited analysis to adults defined as age >20 years.
