This is an ancillary prospective observational study within the Look AHEAD trial. The ancillary study will collect toenail clippings from all participants (n = 5,000) at baseline and at the 1-year visit, and analyze a random subset of the toenails for their heavy metal content using instrumental neutron activation analysis. Toenails provide a time-integrated measure of heavy metal exposure, while instrumental neutron activation analysis provides the concentrations of about 50 heavy metals in the toenail samples, including chromium. This information will allow an evaluation of the relationship of baseline toenail chromium concentrations to weight loss, as well as the interaction between heavy metals and the beneficial effects of weight loss. The proposed study may provide, valuable insight into the determinants of the efficacy of weight loss interventions. In fact, the Look AHEAD trial, because of its size, may be one of the few studies in which these relationships can be measured reliably. In addition, the ancillary study will permit the setup of a specimen bank of toenails to be used in future case-cohort or nested case-control studies of the association of heavy metals with Look AHEAD endpoints, especially myocardial infarction and cardiovascular death.