A genome-wide association study on adherence to low-carbohydrate diets in Japanese

Background/objectives: Low-carbohydrate diets (LCD) are useful for weight reduction, and 50–55% carbohydrate consumption is associated with minimal risk. Genetic differences were related to nutritional consumption, food preferences, and dietary patterns, but whether particular genetic differences in individuals influence LCD adherence is unknown. Subjects/methods: We conducted a GWAS on adherence to LCD utilizing 14,076 participants from the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort study. We used a previously validated semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire to estimate food consumption. Association of the imputed variants with the LCD score by Halton et al. we used linear regression analysis adjusting for sex, age, total dietary energy consumption, and components 1 to 10 by principal component analysis. We repeated the analysis with adjustment for alcohol consumption (g/day) in addition to the above-described variables. Results: Men and women combined analysis without adjustment for alcohol consumption; we found 395 variants on chromosome 12 associated with the LCD score having P values <5 × 10⁻⁸. A conditional analysis with the addition of the dosage data of rs671 on chromosome 12 as a covariate, P values for all 395 SNPs on chromosome 12 turned out to be insignificant. In the analysis with additional adjustment for alcohol consumption, we did not identify any SNPs associated with the LCD score. Conclusion: We found rs671 was inversely associated with adherence to LCD, but that was strongly confounded by alcohol consumption.