<p class="Pa7"><strong>Background: </strong>Poor grip strength is an indicator of frailty and a precursor to functional limitations. Although poor grip strength is more prevalent in older disabled African American women, little is known about the association between race and poverty-related disparities and grip strength in middle-aged men and women.</p><p class="Pa7"><strong>Methods: </strong>We examined the cross-sectional relationship between race, socioeconomic status as assessed by household income, and hand grip strength in men and women in the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study. General linear models examined grip strength (maximum of two trials on both sides) by race and household income adjusted for age, weight, height, hand pain, education, insurance status, family income, and two or more chronic conditions.</p><p class="Pa7"><strong>Results: </strong>Of 2,091 adults, 422(45.4%) were male, 509(54.8%) were African American, and 320 (34.5%) were living in households with incomes below 125% of the federal poverty level (low SES). In adjusted models, African American women had greater grip strength than White women independent of SES (low income household: 29.3 vs 26.9 kg and high income household: 30.5 vs. 28.3kg; P<.05 for both); whereas in men, only African Americans in the high income household group had better grip strength than Whites (46.3 vs. 43.2; P<.05).</p><p class="Pa7"><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The relationship between grip strength, race and SES as assessed by household income varied in this cohort. Efforts to develop grip strength norms and cut points that indicate frailty and sarcopenia may need to be race- and income-specific.</p><p class="Pa7"><em>Ethn Dis. </em>2016;26(4):493-500; doi:10.18865/ ed.26.4.493</p>
Abstract Intervention efforts include social support as a mechanism to promote well-being in diverse communities. Cultivating support can be complex, particularly in disadvantaged urban communities. This complexity is compounded by a lack of studies that attempt to map associations between urban neighborhood environments and social support exchanges. Authors address this gap by analyzing data from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study (Wave 1, 2004–2009), a 20-year epidemiological investigation of African American and White adults living in Baltimore City. Results of ordinary least squares linear regression models (N = 2,002) indicate that individuals who report that their neighborhoods have more social resources (p = .03), social order (p < .001), social cohesion (p = .002), and social control (p = .001) tend to exchange more social support. Respondents in neighborhoods with more social disorder report providing more support (p = .02), but receive less (p = .004). Neighborhood social environment is more consistently associated with support received from friends or other kin compared with spouses and children. These findings suggest that neighborhood social environments may be a key contextual consideration for social work intervention efforts and indicate need for macro-level interventions to complement existing micro-level interventions.
Background Homelessness and housing instability disproportionately affect U.S. veterans with psychiatric disorders, human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), hepatitis C, and Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD). We examined housing status and/or HIV/AIDS in relation to ADRD risk and evaluated hepatitis C, substance use, and mental health disorders as mediators and/or moderators of hypothesized relationships, among U.S. veterans ≥50 years of age seeking Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare services.
Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted using linked VA Homeless Operations Management and Evaluation System and Corporate Data Warehouse databases (2017–2023) on 3 275 098 eligible veterans yielding 133 388 ADRD cases over 5 years of follow-up. Multivariable regression and causal mediation analyses were performed, controlling for demographic and clinical characteristics.
Results Taking stably housed veterans without HIV/AIDS as referent, ADRD risk was higher among veterans with homelessness/housing instability alone (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 1.67, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.63,1.72), lower among veterans with HIV/AIDS alone (aHR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.58,0.73), but similar to veterans with homelessness/housing instability and HIV/AIDS (aHR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.79,1.29). In adjusted models, hepatitis C and psychiatric disorders were positively related to homelessness/housing instability and ADRD risk, but negatively related to HIV/AIDS. Statistically significant mediation and/or moderation of hepatitis C and psychiatric disorders were observed, although <10% of total effects were explained by these characteristics, controlling for confounders.
Conclusions Among older veterans, ADRD diagnoses over 5 years were less among those with HIV/AIDS, but more among those with homelessness/housing instability, and these relationships were partly explained by hepatitis C and psychiatric disorders.
AbstractObjectivesPrevious studies in older adults found robust associations between executive functions (EF) and physical performance, as well as sociodemographic variation in physical performance decline. To examine these associations earlier in the adult lifespan, we investigated relations of EF, race, and sex with age-related physical performance decline during middle adulthood.MethodParticipants were 2,084 urban-dwelling adults (57.2% female; 57.8% African American; 37.3% living in poverty; mean baseline age = 48.1) from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study. Mixed-effects regression was used to examine interactive relations among EF, race, sex, and age (indexing time) with change in dominant and nondominant handgrip strength and lower extremity strength over approximately 5 years. All analyses adjusted for poverty status, and subsequently adjusted for education, body mass index, hypertension, and diabetes.ResultsThere were no significant prospective associations between EF and decline in physical performance measures. Significant cross-sectional associations revealed that lower EF was associated with worse performance on all physical performance measures averaged across both time points (p < .05). A significant two-way interaction of Sex × Age (p = .019) revealed that men experienced greater age-related decline in lower extremity strength than women.DiscussionFindings did not reveal prospective associations between EF and physical performance decline in middle adulthood. However, they identified robust cross-sectional associations between EF and physical performance, and unexpectedly greater decline in lower extremity strength in men than women. Ultimately, these findings may inform prevention and intervention strategies targeting groups at risk for poorer physical function status and decline.
Abstract Objective This cross-sectional study examined whether religious coping buffered the associations between racial discrimination and several modifiable cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors—systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), body mass index (BMI), and cholesterol—in a sample of African American women and men.
Methods Participant data were taken from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity Across the Life Span study (N = 815; 55.2% women; 30–64 years old). Racial discrimination and religious coping were self-reported. CVD risk factors were clinically assessed.
Results In sex-stratified hierarchical regression analyses adjusted for age, socioeconomic status, and medication use, findings revealed several significant interactive associations and opposite effects by sex. Among men who experienced racial discrimination, religious coping was negatively related to systolic BP and HbA1c. However, in men reporting no prior discrimination, religious coping was positively related to most risk factors. Among women who had experienced racial discrimination, greater religious coping was associated with higher HbA1c and BMI. The lowest levels of CVD risk were observed among women who seldom used religious coping but experienced discrimination.
Conclusion Religious coping might mitigate the effects of racial discrimination on CVD risk for African American men but not women. Additional work is needed to understand whether reinforcing these coping strategies only benefits those who have experienced discrimination. It is also possible that religion may not buffer the effects of other psychosocial stressors linked with elevated CVD risk.
Publisher's version (útgefin grein) ; Smoking is a potentially causal behavioral risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2D), but not all smokers develop T2D. It is unknown whether genetic factors partially explain this variation. We performed genome-environment-wide interaction studies to identify loci exhibiting potential interaction with baseline smoking status (ever vs. never) on incident T2D and fasting glucose (FG). Analyses were performed in participants of European (EA) and African ancestry (AA) separately. Discovery analyses were conducted using genotype data from the 50,000-single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) ITMAT-Broad-CARe (IBC) array in 5 cohorts from from the Candidate Gene Association Resource Consortium (n = 23,189). Replication was performed in up to 16 studies from the Cohorts for Heart Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology Consortium (n = 74,584). In meta-analysis of discovery and replication estimates, 5 SNPs met at least one criterion for potential interaction with smoking on incident T2D at p<1x10-7 (adjusted for multiple hypothesis-testing with the IBC array). Two SNPs had significant joint effects in the overall model and significant main effects only in one smoking stratum: rs140637 (FBN1) in AA individuals had a significant main effect only among smokers, and rs1444261 (closest gene C2orf63) in EA individuals had a significant main effect only among nonsmokers. Three additional SNPs were identified as having potential interaction by exhibiting a significant main effects only in smokers: rs1801232 (CUBN) in AA individuals, rs12243326 (TCF7L2) in EA individuals, and rs4132670 (TCF7L2) in EA individuals. No SNP met significance for potential interaction with smoking on baseline FG. The identification of these loci provides evidence for genetic interactions with smoking exposure that may explain some of the heterogeneity in the association between smoking and T2D. ; WHI program is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through contracts HHSN268201100046C, HSN268201100001C, HHSN268201100002C, HHSN268201100003C, HHSN268201100004C, and HHSN271201100004C. The grant funding of WHI are R21 HL123677, R56 DK104806 and R01 MD012765 to NF. The FamHS was funded by R01HL118305 and R01HL117078 NHLBI grants, and 5R01DK07568102 and 5R01DK089256 NIDDK grant." and "The Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (project # Z01-AG000513 and human subjects protocol number 09-AGN248). Support for GENOA was provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (HL119443, HL087660, HL054464, HL054457, and HL054481) of the National Institutes of Health. Ruth loos is supported by the NIH (R01DK110113, U01HG007417, R01DK101855, R01DK107786). The Rotterdam Study GWAS datasets are supported by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research NWO Investments (nr. 175.010.2005.011, 911-03-012), the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (014-93-015; RIDE2), and the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI)/Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging (NCHA), project nr. 050-060-810. The ERF study as a part of EUROSPAN (European Special Populations Research Network) was supported by European Commission FP6 STRP grant number 018947 (LSHG-CT-2006- 01947) and also received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/grant agreement HEALTH-F4-2007-201413 by the European Commission under the programme "Quality of Life and Management of the Living Resources" of 5th Framework Programme (no. QLG2-CT-2002- 01254). The ERF study was further supported by ENGAGE consortium and CMSB. Highthroughput analysis of the ERF data was supported by joint grant from Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (NWORFBR 047.017.043).ERF was further supported by the ZonMw grant (project 91111025), and this work was partially supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study (Contract No. N01-HC25195) and its contract with Affymetrix, Inc for genotyping services (Contract No. N02-HL-6- 4278). This study is also supported by National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) R01 DK078616 to Drs. Meigs, Dupuis and Florez, NIDDK K24 DK080140 to Dr. Meigs, and a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award to Dr. Florez. The HERITAGE Family Study was supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant HL-45670. The Women's Genome Health Study is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Instutute (HL043851 and HL080467) and the National Cancer Institute (CA047988 and UM1CA182913). Additional support for endpoint collection was provided by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute under ARRA funding (HL099355). HyperGEN (Hypertension Genetic Epidemiology Network): The hypertension network is funded by cooperative agreements (U10) with NHLBI: HL54471, HL54472, HL54473, HL54495, HL54496, HL54497, HL54509, HL54515, and 2 R01 HL55673- 12. The AGES study has been funded by NIH contracts N01-AG-1-2100 and 271201200022C. Caroline Hayward is supported by an MRC University Unit Programme Grant MC_UU_00007/10 (QTL in Health and Disease)"and "Generation Scotland received core funding from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorate CZD/16/6, the Scottish Funding Council HR03006 and the Wellcome Trust through a Strategic Award (reference 104036/Z/14/Z) for Stratifying Resilience and Depression Longitudinally (STRADL). Genotyping was funded by the UK's Medical Research Council. Jose C. Florez, NIDDK K24 DK110550 The MESA project is conducted and supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in collaboration with MESA investigators. Support for MESA is provided by contracts 75N92020D00001, HHSN268201500003I, N01-HC-95159, 75N92020D00005, N01-HC-95160, 75N92020D00002, N01-HC-95161, 75N92020D00003, N01-HC-95162, 75N92020D00006, N01-HC-95163, 75N92020D00004, N01-HC-95164, 75N92020D00007, N01-HC-95165, N01-HC-95166, N01-HC-95167, N01-HC-95168, N01-HC-95169, UL1-TR-000040, UL1-TR-001079, UL1-TR-001420, UL1-TR-001881, and DK063491. Additionally, one or more authors are affiliated with the following commercial entities: Interleukin Genetics, GlaxoSmithKline, Daiichi-Sankyo, AstraZeneca, Data Tecnica International LLC, Illumina Inc., University of California Healthcare, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Goldfinch Bio, and Novo Nordisk. Please see the Competing Interests Statement for additional details. The funders provided support in the form of salaries for authors but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the 'author contributions' section. ; Peer Reviewed
Data Availability: Our study data are now available at the following URL on the AMP T2D Knowledge Portal: http://www.kp4cd.org/dataset_downloads/t2d. Funding: WHI program is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through contracts HHSN268201100046C, HSN268201100001C, HHSN268201100002C, HHSN268201100003C, HHSN268201100004C, and HHSN271201100004C. The grant funding of WHI are R21 HL123677, R56 DK104806 and R01 MD012765 to NF. The FamHS was funded by R01HL118305 and R01HL117078 NHLBI grants, and 5R01DK07568102 and 5R01DK089256 NIDDK grant." and "The Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (project # Z01-AG000513 and human subjects protocol number 09-AGN248). Support for GENOA was provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (HL119443, HL087660, HL054464, HL054457, and HL054481) of the National Institutes of Health. Ruth loos is supported by the NIH (R01DK110113, U01HG007417, R01DK101855, R01DK107786). The Rotterdam Study GWAS datasets are supported by the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research NWO Investments (nr. 175.010.2005.011, 911-03-012), the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (014-93-015; RIDE2), and the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI)/Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging (NCHA), project nr. 050-060-810. The ERF study as a part of EUROSPAN (European Special Populations Research Network) was supported by European Commission FP6 STRP grant number 018947 (LSHG-CT-2006- 01947) and also received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/grant agreement HEALTH-F4-2007-201413 by the European Commission under the programme "Quality of Life and Management of the Living Resources" of 5th Framework Programme (no. QLG2-CT-2002- 01254). The ERF study was further supported by ENGAGE consortium and CMSB. Highthroughput analysis of the ERF data was supported by joint grant from Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (NWORFBR 047.017.043).ERF was further supported by the ZonMw grant (project 91111025), and this work was partially supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study (Contract No. N01-HC25195) and its contract with Affymetrix, Inc for genotyping services (Contract No. N02-HL-6- 4278). This study is also supported by National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) R01 DK078616 to Drs. Meigs, Dupuis and Florez, NIDDK K24 DK080140 to Dr. Meigs, and a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award to Dr. Florez. The HERITAGE Family Study was supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant HL-45670. The Women's Genome Health Study is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Instutute (HL043851 and HL080467) and the National Cancer Institute (CA047988 and UM1CA182913). Additional support for endpoint collection was provided by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute under ARRA funding (HL099355). HyperGEN (Hypertension Genetic Epidemiology Network): The hypertension network is funded by cooperative agreements (U10) with NHLBI: HL54471, HL54472, HL54473, HL54495, HL54496, HL54497, HL54509, HL54515, and 2 R01 HL55673- 12. The AGES study has been funded by NIH contracts N01-AG-1-2100 and 271201200022C. Caroline Hayward is supported by an MRC University Unit Programme Grant MC_UU_00007/10 (QTL in Health and Disease)"and "Generation Scotland received core funding from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorate CZD/16/6, the Scottish Funding Council HR03006 and the Wellcome Trust through a Strategic Award (reference 104036/Z/14/Z) for Stratifying Resilience and Depression Longitudinally (STRADL). Genotyping was funded by the UK's Medical Research Council. Jose C. Florez, NIDDK K24 DK110550 The MESA project is conducted and supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in collaboration with MESA investigators. Support for MESA is provided by contracts 75N92020D00001, HHSN268201500003I, N01-HC-95159, 75N92020D00005, N01-HC-95160, 75N92020D00002, N01-HC-95161, 75N92020D00003, N01-HC-95162, 75N92020D00006, N01-HC-95163, 75N92020D00004, N01-HC-95164, 75N92020D00007, N01-HC-95165, N01-HC-95166, N01-HC-95167, N01-HC-95168, N01-HC-95169, UL1-TR-000040, UL1-TR-001079, UL1-TR-001420, UL1-TR-001881, and DK063491. Additionally, one or more authors are affiliated with the following commercial entities: Interleukin Genetics, GlaxoSmithKline, Daiichi-Sankyo, AstraZeneca, Data Tecnica International LLC, Illumina Inc., University of California Healthcare, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Goldfinch Bio, and Novo Nordisk. Please see the Competing Interests Statement for additional details. The funders provided support in the form of salaries for authors but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the 'author contributions' section. ; Peer reviewed ; Publisher PDF
The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Bruce M. Psaty (BMP) serves on the DSMB of a clinical trial funded by Zoll Lifecor and on the Steering Committee of the Yale Open Data Access Project funded by Johnson & Johnson. Barbara V. Howard (BVH) has a contract from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Brenda W.J.H. Penninx (BWJHP) has received research funding (non-related to the work reported here) from Jansen Research and Boehringer Ingelheim. Mike A. Nalls (MAN) is supported by a consulting contract between Data Tecnica International LLC and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, USA. MAN also consults for Illumina Inc., the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the University of California Healthcare. MAN also has commercial affiliation with Data Tecnica International, Glen Echo, MD, USA. Mark J. Caulfield (MJC) has commercial affiliation and is Chief Scientist for Genomics England, a UK government company. OHF is supported by grants from Metagenics (on women's health and epigenetics) and from Nestlé (on child health). Peter S. Sever (PSS) is financial supported from several pharmaceutical companies which manufacture either blood pressure lowering or lipid lowering agents, or both, and consultancy fees. Paul W. Franks (PWF) has been a paid consultant in the design of a personalized nutrition trial (PREDICT) as part of a private-public partnership at Kings College London, UK, and has received research support from several pharmaceutical companies as part of European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) projects. Terho Lehtimäki (TL) is employed by Fimlab Ltd. Ozren Polašek (OP) is employed by Gen‐info Ltd. There are no patents, products in development, or marked products to declare. All the other authors have declared no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. ; International audience ; Heavy alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for hypertension; the mechanism by which alcohol consumption impact blood pressure (BP) regulation remains unknown. We hypothesized that a genome-wide association study accounting for gene-alcohol consumption interaction for BP might identify additional BP loci and contribute to the understanding of alcohol-related BP regulation. We conducted a large two-stage investigation incorporating joint testing of main genetic effects and single nucleotide variant (SNV)-alcohol consumption interactions. In Stage 1, genome-wide discovery meta-analyses in ≈131K individuals across several ancestry groups yielded 3,514 SNVs (245 loci) with suggestive evidence of association (P < 1.0 x 10-5). In Stage 2, these SNVs were tested for independent external replication in ≈440K individuals across multiple ancestries. We identified and replicated (at Bonferroni correction threshold) five novel BP loci (380 SNVs in 21 genes) and 49 previously reported BP loci (2,159 SNVs in 109 genes) in European ancestry, and in multi-ancestry meta-analyses (P < 5.0 x 10-8). For African ancestry samples, we detected 18 potentially novel BP loci (P < 5.0 x 10-8) in Stage 1 that warrant further replication. Additionally, correlated meta-analysis identified eight novel BP loci (11 genes). Several genes in these loci (e.g., PINX1, GATA4, BLK, FTO and GABBR2) have been previously reported to be associated with alcohol consumption. These findings provide insights into the role of alcohol consumption in the genetic architecture of hypertension.
The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Bruce M. Psaty (BMP) serves on the DSMB of a clinical trial funded by Zoll Lifecor and on the Steering Committee of the Yale Open Data Access Project funded by Johnson & Johnson. Barbara V. Howard (BVH) has a contract from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Brenda W.J.H. Penninx (BWJHP) has received research funding (non-related to the work reported here) from Jansen Research and Boehringer Ingelheim. Mike A. Nalls (MAN) is supported by a consulting contract between Data Tecnica International LLC and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, USA. MAN also consults for Illumina Inc., the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the University of California Healthcare. MAN also has commercial affiliation with Data Tecnica International, Glen Echo, MD, USA. Mark J. Caulfield (MJC) has commercial affiliation and is Chief Scientist for Genomics England, a UK government company. OHF is supported by grants from Metagenics (on women's health and epigenetics) and from Nestlé (on child health). Peter S. Sever (PSS) is financial supported from several pharmaceutical companies which manufacture either blood pressure lowering or lipid lowering agents, or both, and consultancy fees. Paul W. Franks (PWF) has been a paid consultant in the design of a personalized nutrition trial (PREDICT) as part of a private-public partnership at Kings College London, UK, and has received research support from several pharmaceutical companies as part of European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) projects. Terho Lehtimäki (TL) is employed by Fimlab Ltd. Ozren Polašek (OP) is employed by Gen‐info Ltd. There are no patents, products in development, or marked products to declare. All the other authors have declared no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. ; International audience ; Heavy alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for hypertension; the mechanism by which alcohol consumption impact blood pressure (BP) regulation remains unknown. We hypothesized that a genome-wide association study accounting for gene-alcohol consumption interaction for BP might identify additional BP loci and contribute to the understanding of alcohol-related BP regulation. We conducted a large two-stage investigation incorporating joint testing of main genetic effects and single nucleotide variant (SNV)-alcohol consumption interactions. In Stage 1, genome-wide discovery meta-analyses in ≈131K individuals across several ancestry groups yielded 3,514 SNVs (245 loci) with suggestive evidence of association (P < 1.0 x 10-5). In Stage 2, these SNVs were tested for independent external replication in ≈440K individuals across multiple ancestries. We identified and replicated (at Bonferroni correction threshold) five novel BP loci (380 SNVs in 21 genes) and 49 previously reported BP loci (2,159 SNVs in 109 genes) in European ancestry, and in multi-ancestry meta-analyses (P < 5.0 x 10-8). For African ancestry samples, we detected 18 potentially novel BP loci (P < 5.0 x 10-8) in Stage 1 that warrant further replication. Additionally, correlated meta-analysis identified eight novel BP loci (11 genes). Several genes in these loci (e.g., PINX1, GATA4, BLK, FTO and GABBR2) have been previously reported to be associated with alcohol consumption. These findings provide insights into the role of alcohol consumption in the genetic architecture of hypertension.
The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Bruce M. Psaty (BMP) serves on the DSMB of a clinical trial funded by Zoll Lifecor and on the Steering Committee of the Yale Open Data Access Project funded by Johnson & Johnson. Barbara V. Howard (BVH) has a contract from National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Brenda W.J.H. Penninx (BWJHP) has received research funding (non-related to the work reported here) from Jansen Research and Boehringer Ingelheim. Mike A. Nalls (MAN) is supported by a consulting contract between Data Tecnica International LLC and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD, USA. MAN also consults for Illumina Inc., the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the University of California Healthcare. MAN also has commercial affiliation with Data Tecnica International, Glen Echo, MD, USA. Mark J. Caulfield (MJC) has commercial affiliation and is Chief Scientist for Genomics England, a UK government company. OHF is supported by grants from Metagenics (on women's health and epigenetics) and from Nestlé (on child health). Peter S. Sever (PSS) is financial supported from several pharmaceutical companies which manufacture either blood pressure lowering or lipid lowering agents, or both, and consultancy fees. Paul W. Franks (PWF) has been a paid consultant in the design of a personalized nutrition trial (PREDICT) as part of a private-public partnership at Kings College London, UK, and has received research support from several pharmaceutical companies as part of European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) projects. Terho Lehtimäki (TL) is employed by Fimlab Ltd. Ozren Polašek (OP) is employed by Gen‐info Ltd. There are no patents, products in development, or marked products to declare. All the other authors have declared no competing interests exist. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. ; International audience ; Heavy alcohol consumption is an established risk factor for hypertension; the mechanism by which alcohol consumption impact blood pressure (BP) regulation remains unknown. We hypothesized that a genome-wide association study accounting for gene-alcohol consumption interaction for BP might identify additional BP loci and contribute to the understanding of alcohol-related BP regulation. We conducted a large two-stage investigation incorporating joint testing of main genetic effects and single nucleotide variant (SNV)-alcohol consumption interactions. In Stage 1, genome-wide discovery meta-analyses in ≈131K individuals across several ancestry groups yielded 3,514 SNVs (245 loci) with suggestive evidence of association (P < 1.0 x 10-5). In Stage 2, these SNVs were tested for independent external replication in ≈440K individuals across multiple ancestries. We identified and replicated (at Bonferroni correction threshold) five novel BP loci (380 SNVs in 21 genes) and 49 previously reported BP loci (2,159 SNVs in 109 genes) in European ancestry, and in multi-ancestry meta-analyses (P < 5.0 x 10-8). For African ancestry samples, we detected 18 potentially novel BP loci (P < 5.0 x 10-8) in Stage 1 that warrant further replication. Additionally, correlated meta-analysis identified eight novel BP loci (11 genes). Several genes in these loci (e.g., PINX1, GATA4, BLK, FTO and GABBR2) have been previously reported to be associated with alcohol consumption. These findings provide insights into the role of alcohol consumption in the genetic architecture of hypertension.