In the February issue of the journal, we published a report from Jeff Friedman and colleagues on genome-wide linkage disequilibrium patterns in 30 trios from the island of Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia. This population is of interest because it has undergone severe bottlenecks, and has seen a rapid increase in obesity and metabolic diseases in the aftermath of the introduction of high-fat and high-salt Western foods following the Second World War. Compared to HapMap populations, the paper reported reduced haplotype diversity and long-range linkage disequilibrium around common alleles, suggesting that it may be advantageous to conduct whole-genome association studies on Kosrae.

Friedman and colleagues now report in PNAS on a linkage analysis of quantitative traits for obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia in 2,188 individuals from Kosrae. This paper gives a first glimpse in the peer-reviewed literature of the metabolic traits that are under study on Kosrae, and outlines the chromosomal regions that will be of particular interest as data from the association studies are analyzed. Last year, David Ewing Duncan traveled to Kosrae for Technology Review—these freelancers have all the fun—and penned a fine story about the project that covers it from all angles.