Figure 4. Change in number of cases needed to achieve 80% discovery power in age-matched cases and controls cohort design.

(A) Alzheimer’s disease, (B) type 2 diabetes, (C) cerebral stroke, (D) coronary artery disease, (E) breast cancer, (F) prostate cancer, (G) colorectal cancer, (H) lung cancer. Age-matched cohorts require larger numbers of participants to achieve the same GWAS discovery power compared to the youngest cohort age. There is a noticeable difference between cancers (with the exception of prostate cancer; see the Section “Discussion”) and other LODs. (Displayed here: nine out of 25 SNPs, which are described in the Methods section for common, low-effect-size alleles—scenario A).