The fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) Pro129Thr polymorphism is not associated with severe obesity in Greek subjects

Fatty amid acid hydrolase (FAAH) has been implicated at both protein and gene level with obesity. An association between Pro129Thr variant of the FAAH gene and obesity has been described, but various studies have yielded conflicting results. Our aim was to determine whether this polymorphism is related to severe obesity and whether it confers a risk for variability of quantitative metabolic traits in a cohort of Greek obese subjects. Two groups of severely obese subjects (BMI > 40 kg/m (2)) were studied: a group of 158 metabolically healthy and a group of 145 obese subjects with metabolic syndrome, which were compared to a control group consisting of 121 lean individuals. We did not find any association between the Pro129Thr polymorphism with severe obesity in both subgroups of obese subjects, between these two subgroups (p= 0.11) or on basic anthropometric characteristics in the three groups. Statistically significant differences were found for glucose and HDL in metabolically healthy subjects and HDL in the control group. The borderline significant p-values were not significant after correction for multiple testing. We were unable to find robust evidence of an association of the Pro129Thr variant with severe obesity, and any related quantitative traits among the obese Greek subjects examined.