Associations of gene expression in blood with BMI and weight changes among women in the Norwegian Women and Cancer postgenome cohort

Objective This study aimed to evaluate associations between blood gene expression profiles and (1) current BMI and (2) past weight changes (WCs) among women who had never been diagnosed with cancer in the Norwegian Women and Cancer (NOWAC) postgenome cohort. Methods This cross‐sectional study (N = 1694) used gene expression profiles and information from three questionnaires: Q1 (baseline), Q2 (follow‐up), and Q3 (blood collection). The authors performed gene‐wise linear regression models to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and functional enrichment analyses to identify their biological functions. Results When assessing BMIQ3, the study observed 2394, 769, and 768 DEGs for the obesity‐versus‐normal weight, obesity‐versus‐overweight, and overweight‐versus‐normal weight comparisons, respectively. Up to 169 DEGs were observed when investigating WCQ3‐Q1 (mean = 7 years, range = 5.5–14 years) and WCQ3‐Q2 (mean = 1 year, range =