The waist phenotypes exhibit strong gender-differences and evidence for some genetic effects on fat distribution [7], so we performed additional meta-analyses of our stage 1 GWAS in which men and women were analyzed separately. We also tested whether the effect estimate resulting from the gender-specific fixed effect meta-analysis differed significantly between men and women by applying a t-test comparing β-effect and SE estimates in men with the β-effect and SE estimates in women. The gender-specific meta-analyses were performed on stage 1, stage 2, and combined stage 1+2 data.
