The CODATwins Project: The Current Status and Recent Findings of COllaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins

Abstract

The COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project is a large international collaborative effort to analyze individual-level phenotype data from twins in multiple cohorts from different environments. The main objective is to study factors that modify genetic and environmental variation of height, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and size at birth, and additionally to address other research questions such as long-term consequences of birth size. The project started in 2013 and is open to all twin projects in the world having height and weight measures on twins with information on zygosity. Thus far, 54 twin projects from 24 countries have provided individual-level data. The CODATwins database includes 489,981 twin individuals (228,635 complete twin pairs). Since many twin cohorts have collected longitudinal data, there is a total of 1,049,785 height and weight observations. For many cohorts, we also have information on birth weight and length, own smoking behavior and own or parental education. We found that the heritability estimates of height and BMI systematically changed from infancy to old age. Remarkably, only minor differences in the heritability estimates were found across cultural–geographic regions, measurement time and birth cohort for height and BMI. In addition to genetic epidemiological studies, we looked at associations of height and BMI with education, birth weight and smoking status. Within-family analyses examined differences within same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins in birth size and later development. The CODATwins project demonstrates the feasibility and value of international collaboration to address gene-by-exposure interactions that require large sample sizes and address the effects of different exposures across time, geographical regions and socioeconomic status.

Genetic associations with temporal shifts in obesity and severe obesity during the obesity epidemic in Norway: A longitudinal population-based cohort (the HUNT Study)

“…In line with previous studies, we find a change in the distribution of BMI with an increasingly positive skew [26,30]. Our findings comply with a recent twin study collaboration suggesting unchanged heritability estimates for BMI over time and geography as a result of both increasing average BMI and an increasing impact of the environment on the effects of genetic variation [31,32]. A possible explanation comes from another study suggesting that the effect of certain genetic variants associated with obesity increase in people with higher BMI, and the enhanced genetic effects stem predominantly from gene by environment interactions [33].…”

The Colorado Twin Registry: 2019 Update

“…Longitudinal data on height, weight and body mass index from the LTS and CTS samples represent part of the COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project described in this issue by Silventoinen et al (2019). Much of the height and weight data were self-report or parental report, but in the LTS, at key ages including birth and years 7, 12 and 16, these variables were directly measured.…”

The NAS-NRC Twin Registry and Duke Twins Study of Memory in Aging: An Update

“…In addition, we have begun taking steps to consolidate the original NAS-NRC Twin Registry data (including military service records and Q1-Q8) with data collections that have taken place separately, especially the Duke Twins Study TICS-m and clinical diagnosis data. The NAS-NRC Twin Registry contributes data to larger consortia, including the CODATwins Project (Silventoinen et al, 2019) and the Consortium on Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS; Pedersen et al, 2019). To stimulate data analyses and facilitate collaborations, the Twins Committee prepared a profile of the NAS-NRC cohort (Gatz et al, 2014).…”