BIA is a good alternative for estimating %BF when subjects are within a normal body fat range. BIA tends to overestimate %BF in lean subjects and underestimate %BF in obese subjects.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in developed countries. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have successfully identified novel susceptibility loci for colorectal cancer. To follow-up on these findings, and try to identify novel colorectal cancer susceptibility loci, we present results for genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of colorectal cancer (2,906 cases, 3,416 controls) that have not previously published main associations. Specifically, we calculated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using log-additive models for each study. In order to improve our power to detect novel colorectal cancer susceptibility loci, we performed a meta-analysis combining the results across studies. We selected the most statistically significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for replication using 10 independent studies (8,161 cases and 9,101 controls). We again used a meta-analysis to summarize results for the replication studies alone, and for a combined analysis of GWAS and replication studies. We measured 10 SNPs previously identified in colorectal cancer susceptibility loci and found eight to be associated with colorectal cancer (p-value range: 0.02 to 1.8 × 10−8). When we excluded studies that have previously published on these SNPs, five SNPs remained significant at p<0.05 in the combined analysis. No novel susceptibility loci were significant in the replication study after adjustment for multiple testing, and none reached genome-wide significance from a combined analysis of GWAS and replication. We observed marginally significant evidence for a second independent SNP in the BMP2 region at chromosomal location 20p12 (rs4813802; replication p-value 0.03; combined p-value 7.3 × 10−5). In a region on 5p33.15, which includes the coding regions of the TERT-CLPTM1L genes and has been identified in GWAS to be associated with susceptibility to at least seven other cancers, we observed a marginally significant association with rs2853668 (replication p-value 0.03; combined p-value 1.9 × 10−4). Our study suggests a complex nature of the contribution of common genetic variants to risk for colorectal cancer.

The increased risk of colorectal cancer associated with a high BMI might be largely restricted to tumors that display the more common MS-stable phenotype, suggesting further that colorectal cancer etiology differs by tumor MSI status.