Fat Mass and Obesity-Associated (FTO) Gene (rs9939609) Polymorphism and Metabolic Syndrome: A Study Among Two Rural Communities of Assam, Northeast India Having Different Ancestry

Introduction

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a group of related physio-biochemical factors that greatly increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and overall mortality. The physio-biochemical factors associated with MS have been previously found to have a genetic basis. Recently, the Fat Mass and Obesity-Associated (FTO) gene has been found to have a significant role in obesity.

Objective

To determine the association of FTO gene rs9939609 polymorphism with MS in two rural communities of Assam, Northeast India, having different ancestry.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted among unrelated adult male and female individuals of the Mising and Ahom communities of Dhemaji district, Assam. Genotyping for the FTO gene's rs9939609 polymorphism was performed on a subset of participants. Individuals with MS were cases, while controls were randomly chosen from those without MS. Participants were categorized into AA and TA/TT groups. The chi-square test was utilized to assess whether there is any significant difference in the distributions of various categorical variables across the FTO rs9939609 gene variants (AA and TT/TA). Logistic regression was conducted to assess the relationship between the FTO rs9939609 SNP and the risk of MS. All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26.

Results

Individuals with the AA genotype were found to have significantly higher odds of developing MS than those with TA or TT genotypes, after adjusting for all sociodemographic, behavioral, physiological, biochemical, anthropometric, and body composition measures.

Conclusion

The present study indicated that variations within the FTO locus (specifically rs9939609) were associated with MS and its components among the Mising and Ahom communities.