Genetic influences on the difference in variability of height, weight and body mass index between Caucasian and East Asian adolescent twins

Hur, YM; Kaprio, Jaakko; Iacono, William G.; Boomsma, Dorret I.; McGue, Matthew; Silventoinen, Karri; Martin, Nicholas G.; Luciano, Michelle; Visscher, Peter M.; Rose, Richard J.; He, Miao; Ando, Jun; Ooki, Syuichi; Nonaka, Kazuhiro; Lin, Chaucer C. H.; Lajunen, Hanna-Reetta; Cornes, Belinda K.; Bartels, Meike; Beijsterveldt, Catharina E. M. van; Cherny, Stacey S.; Mitchell, Karen S.

doi:10.1038/ijo.2008.144

Cited by 62 publications

(66 citation statements)

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“…[27][28][29] We did not limit our search to weight, but except one early twin study, 27 all of these studies had used BMI or relative weight as an indicator of obesity. Two twin studies represented Korean population, 16,19 one Taiwanese population 29 and one had pooled information from four East Asian populations, 30 but otherwise the studies were conducted in the Caucasian populations.…”

Section: Search Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent twin study on the heritability of BMI and waist circumference in adolescents from eight countries found that there was more genetic variation in Caucasian than East Asian populations. 30 It would thus be important to analyze in detail whether the genetic architecture in East Asians and other ethnic groups is similar to the Caucasian populations. Ongoing collection of twin data in many Asian countries and from other continents will probably produce new information in this area in the near future.…”

Section: Further Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The genetic and environmental influences on childhood obesity: a systematic review of twin and adoption studies

et al. 2009

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In this systematic review, we aimed to collect together all previous twin and adoption studies on childhood and adolescent obesity up to the age of 18 years. Using several sources, we identified nine twin and five adoption studies; all of these studies had used relative weight as an indicator of obesity. Except the two twin studies from the Korean population, all studies represented Caucasian populations. In a meta-analysis of these twin studies, we found that genetic factors had a strong effect on the variation of body mass index (BMI) at all ages. The common environmental factors showed a substantial effect in mid-childhood, but this effect disappeared at adolescence. Adoption studies supported the role of family environment in childhood obesity as correlations were found between adoptees and adoptive parents; however, correlations were substantially stronger between parents and their biological offspring, further supporting the importance of genetic factors. In the future, more studies implementing genetic and environmental measures into twin models are needed as they allow estimation of the proportion of total genetic variation explained by candidate genes and analyses of gene-environment interactions. More studies of genetic architecture in non-Caucasian populations, of gene-environment interactions, and of body composition and body fat distribution are needed. IntroductionChildhood obesity is one of the major public health problems in the modern world. In the period [2003][2004][2005][2006], 32% of the US children were classified as obese or overweight, 1 and increasing trends in childhood obesity are seen all over the world. 2 These results are especially alarming as overweight children show a high risk of becoming obese adults. 3,4 Childhood is an important period of life for health interventions as health-related behaviors are just in formation, and it seems possible to intervene for preventing the development of obesity. 5 Thus, it is crucial to further understand the background mechanisms of childhood obesity to find even more effective measures to prevent it before it begins to produce more or less irreversible health damages.Both genetic and environmental factors will probably contribute to childhood obesity. 6 Family studies have shown that obesity runs in families, although more detailed twin, adoption and family studies have shown that genetic differences between individuals explain a major proportion of the within-population variation in body mass index (BMI, kg m À2 ) in adulthood. [7][8][9] It is probable that genetic factors have an important role in childhood obesity also, but their role may be different or they may result from other genes than those that operate in adulthood. 10 The environmental factors shared by family members, such as co-twins in twin studies, have shown only a slight effect on the variation of adult BMI. 7,8 However, they may have a more important role in childhood, where parents and their offspring live together and where siblings obviously have a much greater opportu...

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Section: Search Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Further Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The genetic and environmental influences on childhood obesity: a systematic review of twin and adoption studies

et al. 2009

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“…For instance, the relationship between BMI and body fat per cent differs between these populations, with Asians in general having a higher body fat per cent at a lower BMI than Europeans [20]. It has also been estimated that the absolute genetic variances for BMI and weight are greater in Europeans than in East Asians, according to an adolescent twin study [2]. From an epidemiological viewpoint, moreover, it has been hypothesised that the overall impact of obesity on type 2 diabetes is greater in Asians than in Europeans [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Twin studies have generally found heritability estimates of 0.75 to 0.85 for BMI and approximately 0.70 for weight [2]. Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have provided evidence that several loci are associated with common obesity mostly in populations of European descent [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Association of genetic variants for susceptibility to obesity with type 2 diabetes in Japanese individuals

et al. 2011

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Aims/hypothesis In populations of East Asian descent, we performed a replication study of loci previously identified in populations of European descent as being associated with obesity measures such as BMI and type 2 diabetes.Methods We genotyped 14 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from 13 candidate loci that had previously been identified by genome-wide association meta-analyses for obesity measures in Europeans. Genotyping was done in 18,264 participants from two general Japanese populations. For SNPs showing an obesity association in Japanese individuals, we further examined diabetes associations in up to 6,781 cases and 7,307 controls from a subset of the original, as well as from additional populations.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

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Shared Genetic Determinants of Axial Length and Height in Children

Zhang

Hur²,

Huang³

et al. 2011

Arch Ophthalmol

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Methods: Study participants were recruited from the Guangzhou Twin Registry. Axial length was measured using partial coherence laser interferometry. Height was measured with the participants standing without shoes. We computed twin pairwise correlations and cross-twin crosstrait correlations between AL and height for monozygotic and dizygotic twins and performed model-fitting analyses using a multivariate Cholesky model. The right eye was arbitrarily selected to represent AL of participants. Results: Five hundred sixty-five twin pairs (359 monozygotic and 206 dizygotic) aged 7 to 15 years were available for analysis. Phenotypic correlation between AL and height was 0.46 but decreased to 0.19 after adjusting for age, sex, and age ϫ sex interaction. Bivariate Cholesky model-fitting analyses revealed that 89% of phenotypic correlation was due to shared genetic factors and 11% was due to shared random environmental factors, which includes measurement error. Conclusions: Covariance of AL and height is largely attributable to shared genes. Given that AL is a key determinant of myopia, further work is needed to confirm gene sharing between myopia and stature.

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Genetic influences on the difference in variability of height, weight and body mass index between Caucasian and East Asian adolescent twins

Cited by 62 publications

References 58 publications

The genetic and environmental influences on childhood obesity: a systematic review of twin and adoption studies

The genetic and environmental influences on childhood obesity: a systematic review of twin and adoption studies

Association of genetic variants for susceptibility to obesity with type 2 diabetes in Japanese individuals

Shared Genetic Determinants of Axial Length and Height in Children

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