When subjects were divided into quartiles (Q) based on plasma follistatin level, the HRs adjusted for age and sex for Q4 vs. Q1 for incident diabetes was 1.97 (CI: 1.55–2.50, p for trend < 0.001); and 1.35 (CI: 1.04–1.74, p for trend = 0.02) adjusted for multiple risk factors (Table 2, Supplementary Table 1 and Fig. 1). The gene discussed is FST; the disease is diabetes mellitus.