Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of homocystein and Interleukin-6 (IL-6) with obesity in Korean subjects and the prevalence of the polymorphism of IL-6 gene among Koreans.
Method: Subjects were recruited from a health promotion center in a university hospital in Seoul. Subjects' anthropometric measurements, blood pressure, homocysteine level, plasma lipid profile and fasting glucose were assessed. The prevalence of IL-6 polymorphism and its association with obesity were studied.
Results: Total 269 Korean individuals, including 116 (43.1%: Age 39.40 ± 8.48yr; BMI 20.71 ± 1.59 kg/㎡) normal weight subjects and 153 (56.9%: Age 41.16 ± 8.34yr; BMI 25.52 ± 1.90 kg/㎡) overweight and obese subjects were studied. Subjects in the obese group had higher level of homocysteine than that in the normal weight group, 13.02 ± 4.74 umol/L vs. 11.00 ± 4.21 umol/L respectively (P < 0.001) but the difference was disappeared in analysis after stratification according to sex.
Out of the total 269 subjects, there were 268 individuals with GG phenotype (99.6%), only one overweight female with GC phenotype (0.4%) and no one with the CC phenotype (0%). The association of IL-6 polymorphism and obesity was not observed in Koreans.
Conclusions: We couldn't find the association of homocystein and obesity in Korean. IL-6 polymorphism was very low in Koreans comparing to Caucasian and there was no relationship IL-6 polymorphism and obesity in Korean.

Keywords: IL-6, SNP, Obesity, homocysteine