The control cohort comprised 2,566 individuals (1,364 women) randomly selected from the EPIC-Norfolk study of 25,663 men and women of European descent. The case cohort comprised 1,685 obese individuals (718 women), defined as BMI index >30 kg/m2, randomly selected from the obese individuals within EPIC-Norfolk. Participants were aged 39–79 years and were recruited in Norfolk, UK between 1993 and 1997 (ref. 11). Following exclusions due to quality control criteria and missing data, on 625 obese and 1,215 control women were available for genome-wide analysis.
