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Background: To investigate the impact of common variants of FNDC5 on type 2 diabetes and clinical traits related to glucose metabolism in a large Chinese population sample. Methods: Three tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms within the region of the FNDC5 gene were selected and genotyped in 6822 participants. Detailed clinical investigations and biochemistry measurements were carried out in all of the participants. Subjects without diabetes were classified into normal weight and overweight/obese subgroups according to body mass index (BMI). Results: None of the SNPs were associated with either the risk of type 2 diabetes in all of the participants or with any of the clinical quantitative traits in the controls with normal glucose regulation. Subgroup analysis showed that in controls with normal weight (BMI <25 kg/m2), the rs16835198 major allele G was significantly associated with fasting insulin levels, and that each additional copy of the allele resulted in a 0.0178 mU/L increment of the values (p = 0.046). Moreover, after adjusting for confounding variables, there were trends towards correlation of rs16835198 with HOMA-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) (p = 0.057) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels (p = 0.083). In overweight/obese subjects (BMI ≥25 Kg/m2), we noted rs16835198 showed trends towards association with fasting insulin (p = 0.057) and HOMA-IR levels (p = 0.091), both of which declined with additional copies of the major allele G. Moreover, rs16835198 was significantly associated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels (p = 0.013), and HOMA-β cell function (p = 0.028) in the overweight/obese subjects. Finally, we observed a significant interaction between BMI-rs16835198 and fasting insulin levels in the control group (p = 0.003). Conclusions: Our data indicate that the effect of the common FNDC5 SNP rs16835198 on fasting insulin was significantly modified by BMI in the Chinese Han population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To assess the association of albuminuria and retinopathy with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and the related metabolic components defined by various criteria in Chinese community-based subjects. Methods: A total of 3240 Chinese subjects were recruited from urban communities and classified into subgroups with isolated or concomitant state of the two microvascular diseases. MetS was defined according to the standard of International Diabetes Federation, the National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel III and Chinese Diabetes Society (CDS), separately. Albuminuria was defined as an elevated morning urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio. Retinopathy were identified with nonmydriatic retinal photographs according to the Diabetic Retinopathy Disease Severity Scale. Logistic regression was performed to analyze the contributive risk factors. Results: The subgroup of isolated retinopathy was the oldest (P<0.05), with higher blood pressure (P<0.001) and larger waist circumference (P<0.05). After adjusting for age, sex and other metabolic components, individuals with blood pressure over 130/85 mmHg were prone to have isolated albuminuria (OR: 1.51, P = 0.0001); while individuals with fasting plasma glucose over 5.6 mmol/L were in high risk of retinopathy concomitant with albuminria (OR: 3.04, P = 0.006). Larger waist circumference was a potential risk factors for isolated albuminuria and isolated retinopathy, though not significant after further adjustment of other metabolic components. The risk for albuminuria and retinopathy increased with the aggregation of three or more metabolic components. However, the MetS per se did not have synergic effect and only the MetS defined by CDS remained as a risk factor. Conclusions: Albuminuria and retinopathy were highly associated with accumulated metabolic abnormalities including sub-clinical elevated blood pressure and elevated fasting plasma glucose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]