Abstract

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES:

Height is a classic polygenic trait, with a number of genes underlying its variation. We evaluated the prospect of gene-to-diet interactions in a children's cohort, for the insulin-like growth factor II (IGF) rs680 polymorphism and height variation.

SUBJECTS/METHODS:

We screened 795 periadolescent children (424 girls) aged 10-11 years old from the Gene and Diet Attica Investigation (GENDAI) pediatric cohort for the IGF rs680 polymorphism (rs680).

RESULTS:

Children homozygous for the common allele (GG) were taller (148.9+/-7.9 cm) compared with those with the A allele (148.1+/-7.9 cm), after adjusting for age, sex and dairy intake (beta+/-s.e.: 2.1+/-0.95, P=0.026). A trend for rs680 x dairy intake interaction was also revealed (P=0.09). Stratification by IGF rs680 genotype revealed positive significant (P=0.014) association between dairy product intake and height in A-allele children adjusted for the same confounders. A daily increase of four dairy servings was associated with a 0.4 cm increase in height. On grouping dairy intake into low (1.9+/-0.7 servings per day) and high dairy product consumption (4.4+/-1.5 servings per day), children with the A allele who were high dairy product consumers were taller compared with the low dairy product consumers (148.8+/-7.9 vs 147.4+/-7.7 cm, respectively, P=0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:

A higher consumption of dairy products is associated with increased height depending on the rs680 IGF2 genotype.