Association of genetic variants with macronutrient intake in Circassian and Chechan populations in relation to diabetes

Background and aims: Type two Diabetes (T2D) is a complex disease including environmental and genetic factors. Macronutrient intake variation can be partly related to genetics. We propose in this study to analyse GWAS datasets for the Circassian and Chechan populations in order to determine associations between the GWAS data and nutrition intake in relation to diabetes. Methods and results: We analyzed a total of 36 traits including the macro/micronutrient intake in association with Genome wide association studies data for 34 persons with diabetes Chechans and Circassians. Within the Circassian population, there was a statistically significant association between carbohydrate and calorie intake and T2D associated SNPs on Histone deacetylase 9 gene- and between Vitamin B₂ intake and SNPs on a second locus of potential interest on chromosome 11 near LOC101928989 and teneurin transmembrane protein 4. Caffeine intake was also associated with significant SNPs unrelated to T2D. On the other hand, only calorie intake correlated with the occurrence of significant SNPs in Chechans, none of them were related to T2D. Conclusion: we have identified a genetic association between intake of carbohydrate, calorie, vitamin B₂ and caffeine in the Circassian population and calorie intake in the Chechan population. Three of these intake traits (carbohydrate, calorie and vitamin B₂) were correlated with T2D development in Circassians. The association between macronutrient intake and diabetes development can shed light on causative variants for the pathogenesis of T2D.