About the Authors

Iris M. Heid

Contributed equally to this work with: Iris M. Heid, Cornelia Huth, Nan Laird, H.-Erich Wichmann

iris.heid@klinik.uni-regensburg.de

Affiliations Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University Medical Center Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Cornelia Huth

Contributed equally to this work with: Iris M. Heid, Cornelia Huth, Nan Laird, H.-Erich Wichmann

Affiliation Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany

Ruth J. F. Loos

Affiliation Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Florian Kronenberg

Affiliation Division of Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Medical Genetics, Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria

Vera Adamkova

Affiliation Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic

Sonia S. Anand

Affiliation Department of Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Kristin Ardlie

Affiliation Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Heike Biebermann

Affiliation Charité Campus Virchow Klinikum, Institut für Experimentelle Pädiatrische Endokrinologie, Berlin, Germany

Peter Bjerregaard

Affiliation University of Southern Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Heiner Boeing

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam–Rehbrücke, Nuthetal, Germany

Claude Bouchard

Affiliation Human Genomics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America

Marina Ciullo

Affiliation Institute of Genetics and Biophysics ‘A.Buzzati-Traverso’, CNR, Naples, Italy

Jackie A. Cooper

Affiliation Centre for Cardiovascular Genetics, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London, United Kingdom

Dolores Corella

Affiliations Preventive Medicine Department, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, CIBER Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Valencia, Spain

Christian Dina

Affiliations Pasteur Institute, CNRS 8090–Institute of Biology, Lille, France, Institut du Thorax, CNRS ERL3147, INSERM U 915, Nantes, France

James C. Engert

Affiliation Departments of Medicine and Human Genetics, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Eva Fisher

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam–Rehbrücke, Nuthetal, Germany

Francesc Francès

Affiliations Preventive Medicine Department, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain, CIBER Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Valencia, Spain

Philippe Froguel

Affiliation Pasteur Institute, CNRS 8090–Institute of Biology, Lille, France

Johannes Hebebrand

Affiliation Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Duisburg–Essen, Essen, Germany

Robert A. Hegele

Affiliation Robarts Research Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada

Anke Hinney

Affiliation Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Duisburg–Essen, Essen, Germany

Margret R. Hoehe

Affiliation Max Planck Institut for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany

Frank B. Hu

Affiliations Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Jaroslav A. Hubacek

Affiliations Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic, Cardiovascular Research Center, Prague, Czech Republic

Steve E. Humphries

Affiliation Centre for Cardiovascular Genetics, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London, United Kingdom

Steven C. Hunt

Affiliation Cardiovascular Genetics Division, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America

Thomas Illig

Affiliation Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany

Marjo-Riita Järvelin

Affiliations Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom, National Public Health Institute, Department of Child and Adolescent Health, Oulu, Finland, Institute of Health Sciences and Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Marika Kaakinen

Affiliation Institute of Health Sciences and Biocenter Oulu, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

Barbara Kollerits

Affiliation Division of Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Medical Genetics, Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria

Heiko Krude

Affiliation Charité Campus Virchow Klinikum, Institut für Experimentelle Pädiatrische Endokrinologie, Berlin, Germany

Jitender Kumar

Affiliation Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, India

Leslie A. Lange

Affiliation Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Birgit Langer

Affiliation Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany

Shengxu Li

Affiliation Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Andreas Luchner

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine II, University Medical Center Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Helen N. Lyon

Affiliations Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

David Meyre

Affiliation Pasteur Institute, CNRS 8090–Institute of Biology, Lille, France

Karen L. Mohlke

Affiliation Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Vincent Mooser

Affiliation Genetics Division, Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Almut Nebel

Affiliation Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

Thuy Trang Nguyen

Affiliation Institut fuer Medizinische Biometrie und Epidemiologie, Philipps-Universitaet Marburg, Marburg, Germany

Bernhard Paulweber

Affiliation First Department of Internal Medicine, St. Johann Spital, Paracelsus Private Medical University Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Louis Perusse

Affiliation Faculty of Medicine, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada

Lu Qi

Affiliations Max Planck Institut for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Tuomo Rankinen

Affiliation Human Genomics Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America

Dieter Rosskopf

Affiliation Department of Pharmacology, Ernst Moritz Arndt University Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Stefan Schreiber

Affiliation Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

Shantanu Sengupta

Affiliation Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, India

Rossella Sorice

Affiliation Institute of Genetics and Biophysics ‘A.Buzzati-Traverso’, CNR, Naples, Italy

Anita Suk

Affiliation Max Planck Institut for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany

Gudmar Thorleifsson

Affiliation deCODE genetics, Reykjavik, Iceland

Unnur Thorsteinsdottir

Affiliations deCODE genetics, Reykjavik, Iceland, Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

Henry Völzke

Affiliation Department of Community Medicine, Ernst Moritz Arndt University Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

Karani S. Vimaleswaran

Affiliation Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Nicholas J. Wareham

Affiliation Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit, Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Dawn Waterworth

Affiliation Genetics Division, Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Salim Yusuf

Affiliation Department of Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Cecilia Lindgren

Affiliations Welcome Trust Center for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, Oxford Center of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, The Churchill Hospital, Headington, Oxford, United Kingdom

Mark I. McCarthy

Affiliations Welcome Trust Center for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, Oxford Center of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, The Churchill Hospital, Headington, Oxford, United Kingdom

Christoph Lange

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Joel N. Hirschhorn

Affiliations Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Nan Laird

Contributed equally to this work with: Iris M. Heid, Cornelia Huth, Nan Laird, H.-Erich Wichmann

Affiliation Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

H.-Erich Wichmann

Contributed equally to this work with: Iris M. Heid, Cornelia Huth, Nan Laird, H.-Erich Wichmann

Affiliations Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany, Chair of Epidemiology, Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, Klinikum Grosshadern, Munich, Germany

Competing Interests

Dawn Waterworth and Vincent Moser are employers of GSK. Gudmar Thorleifsson is employer and shareholder of deCODE.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: IMH CH. Performed the experiments: IMH CH. Analyzed the data: IMH CH RJFL VA SSA KA HB PB HB CB MC JAC DC CD JCE EF FF PF JH RAH AH MRH FBH JAH SEH SCH TI MRJ MK BK HK JK LAL BL SL HNL DM KLM VM AN TTN BP LP LQ TR DR SS SS RS AS GT UT HV KSV NJW DMW SY CL MIM CL JNH NL HEW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: IMH CH RJFL FK VA SSA KA HB PB HB CB MC JAC DC CD JCE EF FF PF JH RAH AH MRH FBH JAH SEH SCH TI MRJ MK BK HK JK LAL BL SL HNL DM KLM VM AN TTN BP LP LQ TR DR SS SS RS AS GT UT HV KSV NJW DMW SY CL MIM CL JNH NL HEW. Wrote the paper: IMH CH AL NL. Advised with paper writing: RJFL. Advised in design and paper writing: FK. Consulted in the revision: AL. Advised in study design: CL. Motivated the project and consulted in study design: HEW.