First, we identified SNPs with a P-value≤10−5 in the preliminary analyses with at least one of the phenotypes. This set of SNPs was then separated into independent loci by taking the most significantly associated SNP and eliminating all SNPs that have a HapMap CEU pair-wise correlation coefficient (r2)>0.2 with that SNP, then proceeding to the next strongly associated SNP remaining. Seventy-six independent loci each represented by one main SNP met these criteria in our preliminary analysis.
