Obesity, Social and Demographic Context, and the Human Dopamine Receptor d4 (Drd4) Gene

Guang Guo, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Kari North
Seulki Choi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Obesity, Social And Demographic Context, And The Human Dopamine Receptor D4 (DRD4) Gene Guang Guo, Kari North, and Seulki Choi University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill The purpose of the project is (1) to investigate whether there is an association between obesity and the 7R variant of the DRD4 gene and (2) once the association is established in the general population, to see if the association varies by social and demographic context. We used the sibling sample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We attach three tables that describe our preliminary results. Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics. Tables 2 and 3 display the regression results showing a consistent protective effect of the homozygote of the 7R. This result holds for raw BMI and BMI percentile score.