Genetic and environmental relationships between Framingham Risk Score and adiposity measures in Koreans: The Healthy Twin Study

Abstract

Abstract Background and aims: We examined heritability and bivariate analyses for the FraminghamRisk Score (FRS) and adiposity measures among Koreans.Methods and results: We analysed the data from 2496 participants (962 men, 1534 women, age30e74 years), including 1320 non-twin family members, 468 monozygotic (MZ) and 120 dizygotic(DZ) twin pairs, collected from the Healthy Twin study of Korea. Adiposity measurementscomprised BMI, waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio and waist-to-height ratio (WHTR).Analyses were conducted using the Sequential Oligogenic Linkage Analysis Routines (SOLAR)package software. The co-twin control analyses shows that estimates of within-pair regressioncoefficients in the relationship between adiposity traits and FRS were attenuated for MZ twinpairs, relative to DZ twin pairs (0.11e0.26 vs. 0.60e0.71). The heritability estimate for FRS was0.37, and the estimates for adiposity traits ranged from 0.45 to 0.63 (P < 0.001). Bivariateanalysis revealed genetic correlations between FRS, and all of the adiposity traits ranged from0.16 (for WHTR, P > 0.05) to 0.46 (for WC, P < 0.001). The common environmental correlationsbetween FRS and each of the adiposity traits ranged from 0.43 to 0.66 (P < 0.001).Conclusions: FRS and each of the obesity traits shared common genetic and environmentalrelationships. These findings support a pleiotropic action between genes associated withadiposity traits and FRS and a need of further investigations for identifying specific commonenvironmental factors.ª 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved