Gene-environment interactions and obesity: recent developments and future directions

Obesity, a major public health concern, is a multifactorial disease caused by both environmental and genetic factors. Although recent genome-wide association studies have identified many loci related to obesity or body mass index, the identified variants explain only a small proportion of the heritability of obesity. Better understanding of the interplay between genetic and environmental factors is the basis for developing effective personalized obesity prevention and management strategies. This article reviews recent advances in identifying gene-environment interactions related to obesity and describes epidemiological designs and newly developed statistical approaches to characterizing and discovering gene-environment interactions on obesity risk.