Within each trait (BMI, height and WHR), we aimed to compare variance explained in tails of the trait by two genetic scores (polygene scores) obtained from (1) the meta-analyses of the tails of the trait and (2) the meta-analyses of the full distribution. To make the scores comparable, we limited the polygene score construction to the studies that provided genome-wide meta-analysis results for both tails and overall distribution. After LD filtering (using r2≥0.05 and 1 Mb distance) and excluding SNPs present in <50% of samples, we created polygene scores, as weighted sum of risk alleles, using the method proposed by the International Schizophrenia Consortium.45 For the BMI analysis, the association between the polygene scores and tails of BMI was investigated in four samples of extremely obese and two independent cohort studies using the same definition of tails (Supplementary Table 13). Only the two independent cohorts were used for the height and WHR analysis. To estimate the phenotypic variance explained, we fit logistic or linear regression models including age, sex, study-specific covariates and the polygene score as predictors, and tails of
