TY - JOUR
T1 - Familial aggregation of metabolic syndrome indicators in portuguese families
AU - Santos, D. M.
AU - Katzmarzyk, P. T.
AU - Trégouet, D. A.
AU - Gomes, T. N.
AU - Santos, F. K.
AU - Maia, J. A.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Background and Aims. Family studies are well suited to investigate the genetic architecture underlying the metabolic syndrome (MetS). The purposes of this paper were (i) to estimate heritabilities for each of the MetS indicators, and (ii) to test the significance of familial intratrait and cross-trait correlations in MetS markers. Methods and Results. This study included 1,363 individuals from 515 Portuguese families in which five MetS components, including waist circumference (WC), blood pressure (BP), HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), and glucose (GLU), were measured. Intratrait and cross-trait familial correlations of these five components were estimated using Generalized Estimating Equations. Each MetS component was significantly heritable (h 2 ranged from 0.12 to 0.60) and exhibited strong familial resemblance with correlations between biological relatives of similar magnitude to those observed between spouses. With respect to cross-trait correlations, familial resemblance was very weak except for the HDL-TG pair. Conclusions. The present findings confirm the idea of familial aggregation in MetS traits. Spousal correlations were, in general, of the same magnitude as the biological relatives' correlations suggesting that most of the phenotypic variance in MetS traits could be explained by shared environment.
AB - Background and Aims. Family studies are well suited to investigate the genetic architecture underlying the metabolic syndrome (MetS). The purposes of this paper were (i) to estimate heritabilities for each of the MetS indicators, and (ii) to test the significance of familial intratrait and cross-trait correlations in MetS markers. Methods and Results. This study included 1,363 individuals from 515 Portuguese families in which five MetS components, including waist circumference (WC), blood pressure (BP), HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), and glucose (GLU), were measured. Intratrait and cross-trait familial correlations of these five components were estimated using Generalized Estimating Equations. Each MetS component was significantly heritable (h 2 ranged from 0.12 to 0.60) and exhibited strong familial resemblance with correlations between biological relatives of similar magnitude to those observed between spouses. With respect to cross-trait correlations, familial resemblance was very weak except for the HDL-TG pair. Conclusions. The present findings confirm the idea of familial aggregation in MetS traits. Spousal correlations were, in general, of the same magnitude as the biological relatives' correlations suggesting that most of the phenotypic variance in MetS traits could be explained by shared environment.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84885612708&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1155/2013/314823
DO - 10.1155/2013/314823
M3 - Article
C2 - 24171163
AN - SCOPUS:84885612708
SN - 2314-6133
VL - 2013
SP - 314823
JO - BioMed Research International
JF - BioMed Research International
M1 - 314823
ER -