Vitamin D receptor gene polymorphisms are associated with triceps skin fold thickness and body fat percentage but not with body mass index or waist circumference in Han Chinese.

BACKGROUND: Evidence shows that low serum vitamin D concentrations account for an increased risk of obesity by inducing vitamin D receptor (VDR) hypofunction. Although the correlation between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of VDR gene and obesity-related anthropometric measures (such as body mass index [BMI] and waist circumference[WC]) has already been tested, there are only few studies on the association between direct measures of body fat percentage (BFP) and triceps skinfold thickness and the SNPs of VDR. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of VDR gene polymorphism on multiple obesity indexes in Han Chinese, including BMI, WC, BFP and triceps skinfold thickness.

METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, five hundred and seventeen healthy Chinese adults were enrolled in the trial. Four loci in VDR gene (rs2228570 [FokI], rs2189480, rs2239179 and rs7975232[ApaI]) were genotyped by TaqMan probe assays. Obesity indexes including BMI, WC, BFP and triceps skinfold thickness were used to evaluate the relationship to the VDR SNPs. Multiple logistic regression, linear regression and general multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR) were performed to analyze the correlation of VDR gene and obesity indexes.

RESULTS: None of the VDR SNPs were associated with BMI and WC, the C allele of FokI and the T allele of ApaI were associated with an increase in BFP (β = 0.069,P = 0.007; β = 0.087, P = 0.022 respectively); the G allele of rs2239179 and the T allele of ApaI were associated with an increase in triceps skin fold thickness (β = 0.074, P = 0.001; β = 0.122, P < 0.001 respectively). In regards to adiposity-related metabolic parameters, we found that the GT genotype of ApaI was associated with higher level of total cholesterol (TC) (P = 0.013) and Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (P = 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Though we failed to prove that VDR SNPs were in correlation with BMI and WC, we did establish the association between VDR variants and BFP, as well as triceps skinfold thickness. Data obtained suggested that the VDR variants play an important role in regulating adipose tissue activity and adiposity among Han Chinese.