The determination of carotid intima medial thickness in adults—a population-based twin study

Swan, Lorna; Birnie, David H.; Inglis, G. C.; Connell, John; Hillis, W. S.

doi:10.1016/s0021-9150(02)00317-9

Cited by 39 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…estimates ranging from 30 to 64% (21)(22)(23)(24)(25). This difference was somewhat surprising; however, ours was a relatively young population (mean age ϳ40 years) in whom genetic predispositions may not yet be detectable.…”

Section: Conclusion -Our Results Leadmentioning

confidence: 73%

Family History of Type 2 Diabetes Is Associated With Increased Carotid Artery Intimal-Medial Thickness in Mexican Americans

et al. 2005

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OBJECTIVE -To evaluate whether the joint risk of diabetes and atherosclerosis tracked within families, we assessed the correlation between a family history of diabetes and intimalmedial thickness (IMT) of the common carotid artery (CCA).RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS -Study subjects included 620 nondiabetic individuals from 24 families enrolled in the San Antonio Family Heart Study. The thickness of the far walls of the CCA was measured by B-mode ultrasonography. Statistical analyses included familial correlations to account for the nonindependence of family data.RESULTS -After adjusting for sex, age, and IMT reader effects, the heritability of IMT in this population was 16% (P ϭ 0.009). Using a more comprehensive family history score that accounted for diabetes status of the individual's parents and older siblings, we observed a significant correlation between family history score and increased CCA IMT (0.006 mm increase in CCA IMT for every point increase of diabetes family history score, P ϭ 0.016). This association remained even after further adjustment for BMI, smoking, and fasting insulin and glucose levels. After adjusting for several cardiovascular risk factors, the mean CCA IMT in those with high family history scores for diabetes was still 0.037 mm thicker than those with low family history scores for diabetes (P ϭ 0.040).CONCLUSIONS -These results suggest that the genetic contribution to CCA IMT variability is modest. Also, the small increase in subclinical atherosclerosis observed even among nondiabetic Mexican Americans with a positive family history of diabetes is probably transmitted along with the risk of diabetes through shared etiologic risk factors between diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Diabetes Care 28:1882-1889, 2005A lthough cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are well documented complications of type 2 diabetes (1,2), there is considerable evidence that type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease share common antecedents. First, impaired glucose tolerance not only clusters with other cardiovascular risk factors but may also be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (3-7). Second, prediabetic individuals are more likely to have an adverse cardiovascular risk profile (8 -10). Third, more direct measures of subclinical atherosclerosis indicate an increased atherosclerosis in pre-diabetic individuals compared with those without diabetes (11). These observations have led to the hypothesis, often referred to as the "common soil" hypothesis, that cardiovascular disease may not be a true complication of type 2 diabetes in the sense that complications develop after the clinical manifestation of a disease. Rather, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease share common environmental risk factors, common underlying genetic burdens, or both (12,13).One approach toward understanding this complicated relationship is to examine whether a family history of diabetes is correlated with degree of subclinical atherosclerosis in nondiabetic individuals. If pleiotropic genes mediate the d...

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Section: Conclusion -Our Results Leadmentioning

confidence: 73%

Family History of Type 2 Diabetes Is Associated With Increased Carotid Artery Intimal-Medial Thickness in Mexican Americans

et al. 2005

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“…Neither of these two studies did a thorough adjustment for coronary heart disease risk factors. In addition, only one of these studies statistically tested the genetic contribution to carotid IMT, and found it to be not statistically significant from zero [20]. This result is in contrast with family studies which found high heritability for carotid IMT [16,17,22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Carotid IMT has been shown to be strongly determined by genetic factors [13,14]. However, the precise extent to which genetic predisposition explains the variance of carotid IMT is unclear [13,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. In addition, it is not clear to what extent the heritability of IMT reflects genetic influences on traditional coronary risk factors, many of which are strongly heritable [23][24][25][26][27][28], or pathways independent of such risk factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared with family designs, twin studies are preferable for heritability estimation, because they allow a more precise separation of common environmental influences from genetic effects [29]. To date, only two twin studies reported heritability estimates for carotid IMT [20,30]. Neither of these two studies did a thorough adjustment for coronary heart disease risk factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Heritability of carotid intima-media thickness: A twin study

Zhao¹,

Cheema²,

Bremner³

et al. 2008

Atherosclerosis

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Objective-To estimate the heritability of carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), a surrogate marker for atherosclerosis, independent of traditional coronary risk factors.Methods and Results-We performed a classical twin study of carotid IMT using 98 middleaged male twin pairs, 58 monozygotic (MZ) and 40 dizygotic (DZ) pairs, from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry. All twins were free of overt cardiovascular disease. Carotid IMT was measured by ultrasound. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to determine the association between traditional cardiovascular risk factors and carotid IMT. Intraclass correlation coefficients and genetic modeling techniques were used to determine the relative contributions of genes and environment to the variation in carotid IMT. In our sample, the mean of the maximum carotid IMT was 0.75 ± 0.11. Age, systolic blood pressure and HDL were significantly associated with carotid IMT. The intraclass correlation coefficient for carotid IMT was larger in MZ (0.66; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.62-0.69) than in DZ twins (0.37; 95% CI, 0.29-0.44), and the unadjusted heritability was 0.69 (95% CI, 0.54-0.79). After adjusting for traditional coronary risk factors, the heritability of carotid IMT was slightly reduced but still of considerable magnitude (0.59; 95% CI, 0.39-0.73).Conclusion-Genetic factors have a substantial influence on the variation of carotid IMT. Most of this genetic effect occurs through pathways independent of traditional coronary risk factors.

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“…11,12 any vascular bed (Table 1). 6,9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] Progression of carotid atherosclerosis also is influenced by concomitant risk factors (Table 2). [31][32][33][34][35][36][37] Carotid atherosclerosis is commonly found in association with coronary and peripheral atherosclerosis.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%