Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
QIMR Home Page
GenEpi Home Page
About GenEpi
Publications
Contacts
Research
Staff Index
Collaborators
Software Tools
Computing Resources
Studies
Search
GenEpi Intranet
PMID
11869490
TITLE
Genetic and non-genetic factors affecting birth-weight and adult Body Mass Index.
ABSTRACT
Birthweight affects neonatal mortality and morbidity and has been used as a marker of foetal undernutrition in studies of prenatal effects on adult characteristics. It is potentially influenced by genetic and environmental influences on the mother, and effects of foetal genotype, which is partially derived from the maternal genotype. Interpretations of variation in birthweight and associated characteristics as being due to prenatal environment ignore other possible modes of materno-foetal transmission. Subjects were adult twins recruited through the Australian Twin Registry, aged 17 to 87 years, and the sample comprised 1820 men and 4048 women. Twins reported their own birthweight as part of a health questionnaire. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated from self-reports of height and weight. Correlations between co-twins' birthweights were high for both monozygotic (r = 0.77) and dizygotic (r = 0.67) pairs, leading to substantial estimates of shared environmental effects (56% of variance) with significant additive genetic (23%) and non-shared environmental (21%) components. Adult BMI was mainly influenced by genetic factors, both additive (36% of variance) and nonadditive (35%). The correlation between birthweight and BMI was positive, in that heavier babies became on average more obese adults. A bivariate model of birthweight and adult BMI showed significant positive genetic (r(g) = 0.16, p = 0.005) and environmental (r(e) = 0.08, p = 0.000011) correlations. Intra-uterine environmental or perinatal influences shared by cotwins exercise a strong influence on birthweight, but the factors which affect both birthweight and adult BMI are partly genetic and partly non-shared environmental.
DATE PUBLISHED
2001 Oct
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 2002/03/01 10:00
medline 2002/10/22 04:00
entrez 2002/03/01 10:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Whitfield JB Whitfield J B JB Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney.
Treloar SA Treloar S A SA
Zhu G Zhu G G
Martin NG Martin N G NG
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 4
ISSUE: 5
TITLE: Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
ISOABBREVIATION: Twin Res
YEAR: 2001
MONTH: Oct
DAY:
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Print
ISSN: 1369-0523
ISSNTYPE: Print
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Twin Res
COUNTRY: Australia
ISSNLINKING: 1369-0523
NLMUNIQUEID: 9815819
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
Twin Study
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Birth Weight genetics
Body Mass Index genetics
Female genetics
Humans genetics
Male genetics
Middle Aged genetics
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's