The prevalence of
obesity has increased worldwide and it has been designated as a global epidemic by WHO. In Pakistan, recent decades have seen an explosion of
obesity, but the research in the field of
obesity genetics is limited. We aimed to determine the allele/genotype frequencies of Ala54Thr polymorphism of the FABP2 gene that affects
fatty acid metabolism and look for its association on serum biochemical parameters in the Pakistani population. A total of 569 obese and 446 non obese controls were genotyped by PCR-RFLP method. Serum parameters were determined by commercially available kits. Results showed a higher allele frequency of Thr54 allele in cases (0.424) as well as controls (0.331) than Caucasians (0.271). The risk allele was significantly associated with
obesity (p=0.002) and there was a significant difference in allele and genotype frequencies among cases and controls (p=0.002). The risk allele is significantly associated with serum total
cholesterol and
LDL-c but not
triglycerides, HDL-c,
leptin, systolic/diastolic blood pressure and
insulin. The Ala54Thr polymorphism has a high prevalence in the Pakistani population and may play a considerable role in the development of
obesity. The effect on
obesity may be in part mediated through changing serum
cholesterol levels. We then performed a systematic search for any previous reports on the association of the variant with
obesity. We identified 5 studies for Ala54Thr association with
obesity in Asian subjects. The meta-analysis revealed a significant association of the variant with
obesity (Thr allele: OR=1.15, CI=1.02-1.30 and p-value=0.02).