Does Intact Pair Status Matter in the Study of African American Twins? The Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging

Whitfield, Keith E.; Brandon, Dwayne T.; Wiggins, Sebrina A.; Vogler, George P.; McClearn, G E

doi:10.1080/03610730303699

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Intra-pair correlations were obtained from twelve studies, of which seven were carried out in Europe [19][20][21][26][27][28][29] and five in the United States [8,[30][31][32][33]. We acquired IPDs for the remaining studies from three European twin cohorts [13,[15][16][17] and an American twin registry [14].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to published articles, we obtained IPDs from the Netherlands Twin Registry (NTR) [13], Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA) [14], Murcia Twin Register (MTR) [15] and the Leuven Longitudinal Twin Study (LLTS) [16], which used subjects from the East Flanders Prospective Twin Study (EFPTS) [17], comprising a total of 1,223 twin pairs. The height and weight data in the IPDs were used to calculate BMI and intra-twin pair correlations in order for it to be in a comparable format to the published data.…”

Section: Search Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Heritability of body mass index in pre-adolescence, young adulthood and late adulthood

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increased body mass index (BMI) is a worldwide health issue. Individual differences in the susceptibility to increased BMI could be related to genes or environment. We performed a systematic review of genetic studies on BMI in pre-adolescence, young adulthood and late adulthood. We searched PubMed and EMBASE with heritability, body mass index, BMI, weight, height, anthropometry and twins as search terms. Studies reporting intra-pair correlations of healthy twin pairs that were raised together were included. This resulted in the inclusion of 8,179 monozygotic (MZ) and 9,977 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs from twelve published studies in addition to individual participant data for 629 MZ and 594 DZ pairs from four twin registries. Structural equation modelling with intra-pair twin correlations showed that the heritability of BMI remained high over all age categories ranging from 61% (95% CI 54-64%) to 80% (95% CI 76-81%) for male and female subjects combined, while unique environmental influences increased from 14% (95% CI 13-15%) to 40% (95% CI 37-43%) with increasing age. Heritability of BMI remains consistently high over different age categories. Environmental changes over time do not seem to have as big a relative impact on an individual's weight as previously reported, suggesting a mainly genetic influence on variation in BMI over the years.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Search Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritability of body mass index in pre-adolescence, young adulthood and late adulthood

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The participants consisted of 212 intact pairs of twin that included 102 identical or Monozygotic (MZ) pairs and 110 fraternal or Dizygotic (DZ) pairs who participated in the Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA) (Whitfield, Brandon, Wiggins, Vogler, & McClearn, 2003). The sample was 37.3% male, with a mean age of 47.1 (SD 13.8) years.…”

Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms by age and gender in African American twins

Whitfield

Edwards

Brandon

et al. 2008

Aging & Mental Health

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Depression is typically considered relative to individuals and thought to originate from both biological and environmental factors. However, the environmental constraints and insults that African Americans experience likely influence the concordance by age and gender for depression scores among adult African American twins. Monozygotic (MZ) (n = 102) and Dizygotic (DZ) (n = 110) twins, age 25-88 years in the Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging were examined using an 11-item version of the CES-D measure of depressive symptomatology. Those participants with scores above nine were considered depressed. Overall, the MZ pairs had a higher concordance than the DZ pairs implying genetic influence. Both MZ and DZ males had higher concordances than either female zygosity groups. The difference between the concordance rates for MZ and DZ twin pairs was greater in males than females. By age group, the difference between the concordance rates for younger MZ and DZ twin pairs was much larger than for older pairs. The results suggest that, even though African Americans may be at risk for depression due to contextual/environmental factors, genetic influences remain important.

show abstract

“…Details on the sample can be found elsewhere. 24 The protocol and process for obtaining informed consent were approved by The Pennsylvania State University and The University of North Carolina Institutional Review Committees. The sample consisted of 102 monozygotic (MZ) (39 male-male pairs and 63 female-female pairs) and 115 dizygotic (DZ) (43 male-male pairs and 72 female-female pairs) twins.…”

Section: Study Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic and environmental influences on body fat and blood pressure in African-American adult twins

et al. 2005

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective: African Americans have a particularly high prevalence of excessive body fat and high blood pressure. Genetic and environmental influences may be implicated for both of these risk factors. We investigated the potential for common genetic and environmental influences on body fat (waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI)) and blood pressure measures (systolic and diastolic pressure (SBP, DBP)) among African-American male and female subjects. Research methods and procedures: Measurements were taken as part of the Carolina African-American Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA). The CAATSA sample contains 217 same-sex African-American male and female twins with average age of 47 years. This analysis included 39 monozygotic male pairs (MZ), 43 dizygotic male pairs (DZ); 63 MZ female pairs, and 72 DZ female pairs. Maximum likelihood quantitative genetic analyses were used. Results: The total genetic variance for SBP was 22% in male subjects and 40.1% in female subjects. Of this total variance, 3.1% was in common with BMI in male subjects and 6% was in common with BMI in female subjects. After controlling for the effects of BMI, WC had less than 1% of its variance in common with SBP in male and female subjects. For DBP, the total genetic variance was 16.9% in male and 38.7% in female subjects. Of this total variance 6.1% was in common with BMI in male subjects and 3.7% was in common in female subjects. Again, WC had less than 1% of its genetic variance in common with DBP in both male and female subjects. The environmental variance common among these measures was also very small. The remaining variance was primarily accounted for by genetic and environmental effects unique to each measure as well as age. Discussion: Based on the very small common genetic variance for BMI, SBP, and DBP as well as WC and the blood pressure measures, our results suggest that searching for common genes among these measures may be inconclusive.

show abstract

Does Intact Pair Status Matter in the Study of African American Twins? The Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging

Cited by 27 publications

References 30 publications

Heritability of body mass index in pre-adolescence, young adulthood and late adulthood

Heritability of body mass index in pre-adolescence, young adulthood and late adulthood

Genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms by age and gender in African American twins

Genetic and environmental influences on body fat and blood pressure in African-American adult twins

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About