There is increasing evidence that methylation at specific positions within a gene'spromoter may be more important for gene expression than the mean methylation of CpGsites in the promoter region.33,34 In the present study, we thereforefurther examined whether the CHD associations we observed in the main analysis usingmean methylation were specific to certain positions in the IL-6 promoter. The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is coronary artery disorder.