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.
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PMID
14624727
TITLE
The genetics of coronary heart disease: the contribution of twin studies.
ABSTRACT
Despite the decline in coronary heart disease in many European countries, the disease remains an enormous public health problem. Although we know a great deal about environmental risk factors for coronary heart disease, a heritable component was recognized a long time ago. The earliest and best known examples of how our genetic constitution may determine cardiovascular risk relate to lipoprotein(a), familial hypercholesterolaemia and apolipoprotein E. In the past 20 years a fair number of polymorphisms assessed singly have shown strong associations with the disease but most are subject to poor repeatability. Twins constitute a compelling natural experiment to establish the genetic contribution to coronary heart disease and its risk factors. GenomEUtwin, a recently funded Framework 5 Programme of the European Community, affords the opportunity of comparing the heritability of risk factors in different European Twin Registries. As an illustration we present the heritabilities of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, based on data from over 4000 twin pairs from six different European countries and Australia. Heritabilities for systolic blood pressure are between 52 and 66% and for diastolic blood pressure between 44 and 66%. There is no evidence of sex differences in heritability estimates and very little to no evidence for a significant contribution of shared family environment. A non-twin based prospective case/cohort study of coronary heart disease and stroke (MORGAM) will allow hypotheses relating to cardiovascular disease, generated in the twin cohorts, to be tested prospectively in adult populations. Twin studies have also contributed to our understanding of the life course hypothesis, and GenomEUtwin has the potential to add to this.
DATE PUBLISHED
2003 Oct
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
pubmed 2003/11/20 05:00
medline 2004/01/21 05:00
entrez 2003/11/20 05:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Evans A Evans Alun A Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. a.evans@qub.ac.uk
Van Baal GC Van Baal G Caroline M GC
McCarron P McCarron Peter P
DeLange M DeLange Marlies M
Soerensen TI Soerensen Thorkild I TI
De Geus EJ De Geus Eco J C EJ
Kyvik K Kyvik Kirsten K
Pedersen NL Pedersen Nancy L NL
Spector TD Spector Tim D TD
Andrew T Andrew Toby T
Patterson C Patterson Christopher C
Whitfield JB Whitfield John B JB
Zhu G Zhu Gu G
Martin NG Martin Nicholas G NG
Kaprio J Kaprio Jaakko J
Boomsma DI Boomsma Dorret I DI
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME: 6
ISSUE: 5
TITLE: Twin research : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
ISOABBREVIATION: Twin Res
YEAR: 2003
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
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
AG 04563 NIA NIH HHS United States
AG 10175 NIA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
KEYWORDS
MESH HEADINGS
DESCRIPTORNAME QUALIFIERNAME
Australia epidemiology
Blood Pressure genetics
Coronary Disease genetics
Environment genetics
Europe epidemiology
Female epidemiology
Humans epidemiology
Lipid Metabolism epidemiology
Male epidemiology
Registries epidemiology
Risk Factors epidemiology
Sex Factors epidemiology
Twin Studies as Topic epidemiology
SUPPLEMENTARY MESH
GENE SYMBOLS
CHEMICALS
OTHER ID's