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Pediatrics

Genetic variations in adiponectin levels and dietary patterns on metabolic health among children with normal weight versus obesity: the BCAMS study

International Journal of Obesity volume 46, pages 325–332 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/objectives

Adiponectin represents an important link between adipose tissue dysfunction and cardiometabolic risk in obesity; however, there is a lack of data on the effects of adiponectin-related genetic variations and gene-diet interactions on metabolic disorders in children. We aimed to investigate possible interactions between adiponectin-related genetic variants and habitual dietary patterns on metabolic health among children with normal weight versus overweight/obesity, and whether these effects in childhood longitudinally contribute to metabolic risk at follow-up.

Subjects/methods

In total, 3,317 Chinese children aged 6–18 at baseline and 339 participants at 10-year follow-up from the Beijing Child and Adolescent Metabolic Syndrome study cohort were included. Baseline lifestyle factors, plasma adiponectin levels, and six adiponectin-related genetic variants resulting from GWAS in East Asians (loci in/near ADIPOQ, CDH13, WDR11FGF, CMIP, and PEPD) were assessed for their associations with the metabolic disorders. Being metabolically unhealthy was defined by exhibiting any metabolic syndrome component.

Results

Among the six loci, ADIPOQ rs6773957 (OR 1.26, 95% CI:1.07–1.47, P = 0.004) and adiponectin receptor CDH13 rs4783244 (0.82, 0.69–0.96, P = 0.017) were correlated with metabolic risks independent of lifestyle factors in normal-weight children, but the associations were less obvious in those with overweight/obesity. A significant interaction between rs6773957 and diet (Pinteraction = 0.004) for metabolic health was observed in normal-weight children. The adiponectin-decreasing allele of rs6773957 was associated with greater metabolic risks in individuals with unfavorable diet patterns (P < 0.001), but not in those with healthy patterns (P > 0.1). A similar interaction effect was observed using longitudinal data (Pinteraction = 0.029).

Conclusions

These findings highlight a novel gene-diet interaction on the susceptibility to cardiometabolic disorders, which has a long-term impact from childhood onward, particularly in those with normal weight. Personalized dietary advice in these individuals may be recommended as an early possible therapeutic measure to improve metabolic health.

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Fig. 1: The ADIPOQ-diet interaction on metabolic health in normal weight children.
Fig. 2: The ADIPOQ-diet interaction on metabolic health after a 10-year follow-up.

Data availability

All datasets used in the current investigation are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The code supporting the conclusions of this article is available upon a reasonable request from the authors.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Jie Mi, the professor of Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing, and other BCAMS study members and participants for their continuing participation in this research effort.

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research Program of China (2016YFC1304801), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81970732), the Capital’s Funds for Health Improvement and Research (2020-2Z-40117), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7172169), key program of Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (D111100000611001, D111100000611002), Beijing Science & Technology Star Program (2004A027), Novo Nordisk Union Diabetes Research Talent Fund (2011A002), National Key Program of Clinical Science (WBYZ2011-873), the Non-profit Central Research Institute Fund of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (2018PT32001), and AMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS 2021-1-I2M-016).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ge Li, Ling Zhong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Endocrinology, NHC Key Laboratory of Endocrinology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100730, China

    Ge Li, Ling Zhong, Bo Li, Dongmei Wang, Yu Li, Qian Zhang & Ming Li

  2. Department of Endocrinology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100043, China

    Lanwen Han, Yonghui Wang & Shan Gao

  3. Epidemiology Department, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, LA, 90024, USA

    Yanglu Zhao

  4. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Lu Qi

  5. Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Lu Qi

  6. Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Aberdeen University, Aberdeen, UK

    John R. Speakman

  7. State Key Laboratory of Molecular Developmental Biology, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    John R. Speakman

  8. Department of Endocrinology, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Steven M. Willi

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  1. Ge Li
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Contributions

GL contributed to the data analysis and drafted the manuscript; LZ performed data analyses and edited the manuscript; LH, YW, BL, DW, YL, and QZ contributed to data collection; YZ contributed to the data interpretation; QL, JRS and SMW contributed to the data interpretation and edited/ revised the manuscript; ML contributed to the concept, design of the study, analyzed the data and revised the manuscript. SG was responsible for the concept, design, and data collection in the BCAMS follow-up study, and contributed to the acquisition and interpretation of the data, and revised the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ming Li or Shan Gao.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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The study was approved by the local ethics committee and is following the declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles for medical research involving human participants. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients before participation in this study.

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Li, G., Zhong, L., Han, L. et al. Genetic variations in adiponectin levels and dietary patterns on metabolic health among children with normal weight versus obesity: the BCAMS study. Int J Obes 46, 325–332 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-021-01004-z

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