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A 3-year intervention with a Mediterranean diet modified the association between the rs9939609 gene variant in FTO and body weight changes

International Journal of Obesity volume 34, pages 266–272 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Introduction:

The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of the rs9939609 (T/A) gene variant in fat mass and obesity-associated gene (FTO) on body weight changes after 3 years and its modification by a randomized nutritional intervention with a Mediterranean-style diet in a population of subjects at high cardiovascular risk.

Design:

A substudy of PREDIMED, which is a randomized trial aimed at assessing the effect of the Mediterranean diet (MD) for primary cardiovascular disease prevention. There were three nutritional intervention groups: two of them with a Mediterranean-style diet and the third was a control group advised to follow a conventional low-fat diet.

Subjects:

A total of 776 high cardiovascular risk subjects aged 55–80 years.

Measurements:

Anthropometric measurements were recorded at baseline and at 3 years. The participants were genotyped by RT-PCR, followed by allelic discrimination.

Results:

Homozygous subjects had the highest baseline body weight. The dominant model showed that subjects carrying the A allele had the lowest body weight gain (B=−0.685; P=0.022) after 3 years of nutritional intervention compared with nonmutated subjects (TT genotype) regardless of the nutritional intervention. Moreover, this effect was statistically significant in carriers of the A allele only among those allocated to the MD groups (B=−0.830; P=0.018), but it was not significant among those allocated to the control group (P for interaction=0.649).

Conclusion:

This study confirmed the association between body weight and the FTO rs9939609 polymorphism. Interestingly, our results showed that, although at baseline the A allele was associated with higher body weight, after 3 years of nutritional intervention with a Mediterranean-style-diet, A-allele carriers had lower body weight gain than wild type subjects. No interaction between nutritional intervention and the polymorphism was found.

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Acknowledgements

We are especially indebted to Prof Valentina Ruiz-Gutierrez from Instituto de la Grasa, CSIC, Sevilla (Spain) for her invaluable help to ensure the free provision of olive oil to our participants and to all other members of the PREDIMED group: Salas-Salvado J, Corella D, Fiol M, Ros E, Aros F, Gomez-Gracia E, Lamuela-Raventos RM, Saez G, Lapetra J, Serra-Majem L, Pinto L, Covas MI, Tur JA, Portillo MP. We would like to thank all the sources of support: Department of Health of the Navarra Government (Spain), Linea Especial (LE 97) of the University of Navarra, the RETICS Scheme funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health (PREDIMED Project, Ref. RD 06/0045/0000) and to CIBERobn that is an initiative of ISCIII (CB06/03/1017). Razquin C is a predoctoral fellow funded by IBERCAJA. We also thank all the participants and members of the PREDIMED project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Physiology and Toxicology, University of Navarra, Navarra, Spain

    C Razquin, J A Martinez & A Marti

  2. Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, School of Medicine, Clinica Universitaria, University of Navarra, Navarra, Spain

    M A Martinez-Gonzalez & M Bes-Rastrollo

  3. Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health and History of Science, University of Malaga, Spain

    J Fernández-Crehuet

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  1. C Razquin
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Correspondence to A Marti.

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Razquin, C., Martinez, J., Martinez-Gonzalez, M. et al. A 3-year intervention with a Mediterranean diet modified the association between the rs9939609 gene variant in FTO and body weight changes. Int J Obes 34, 266–272 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2009.233

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