McCormick N, Yokose C, Lu N, et al. - Researchers aimed at determining how excess adiposity and genetic predisposition, in combination, are associated with the risk of incident female gout, and compared the correlations with their male counterparts. Further, they investigated the proportion attributable to BMI only, genetic risk score (GRS) only, and to their interaction.

• Potential gene-BMI interactions were prospectively examined in 18,244 women from the Nurses’ Health Study and compared with 10,888 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

• From 114 common urate-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms, derivation of GRS for hyperuricemia was done.

• For female gout, researchers noted multivariable relative risk (RR) of 1.49 per 5 kg/m² increment of BMI and 1.43 per SD increment in the GRS.

• The joint association of BMI and GRS was linked with an RR of 2.18, more than the sum of each individual factor, suggesting a significant interaction on an additive scale.

• For female gout, the attributable proportions of joint effect were 42% to adiposity, 37% to genetic predisposition and 22% to their interaction.

• Among men, there appeared smaller but still significant additive interaction and the attributable proportion of joint effect was 14% (6% to 22%).

• While there was a higher risk of gout in strong correlation with both excess adiposity and genetic predisposition, the excess risk of both combined was higher than the sum of each, particularly among women.