Clinical Characteristics of GD patients and healthy controls
A total of 650 GD patients and 1300 healthy controls were recruited in this study. The average age was 38.8±14.7 years among GD patients and 40.1±12.6 years among controls. The 650 GD patients included 194 (29.8%) males and 456 (70.2%) females. The 1300 healthy controls consisted of 443 (34.0%) males and 857 (66.0%) females. No statistical differences were identified between GD patients and healthy controls in age and gender (P >0.05; Table 1). The distribution of genotype frequencies of nine SNPs did not deviate from the Hardy−Weinberg equilibrium in the control group of this study.