Does 5HTT Moderate the Association Between Subjective Body Weight and Objective Body-Mass Index?

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Subjective Health Assessment

Abstract

We investigate whether the 7R allele repeat of DRD4 and the short allele of 5HTT, alleles associated with environmental sensitivity, moderate the association between one’s subjective reported body weight (i.e. overweight, underweight, etc.) and one’s objective body-mass index. Using genetic sibling data found in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we show that, while the individual regression models for DRD4 indicate non-significant results when considering an interaction between objective BMI and number of risk alleles, 5HTT does provide significant results for the same interaction. Therefore, there does indeed appear to be a significant moderating effect of “risky genotypes” between objective BMI and subjective body weight reporting for 5HTT. More important, how an individual reports their own subjective weight is conditional on the number of short alleles he or she for the 5HTT gene. Overall, the findings demonstrate a possible connection to the environmental susceptibility framework for medical sociology by suggesting that weight-reporting behaviors reflect interactions between genetic factors and the prevalence of these behaviors within a person’s genes.

Authors

• Robert Lysle Wedow, University of Colorado-Boulder

• Jason D. Boardman, University of Colorado