Skip to main content
Journal cover image

The heritability of CHD mortality in danish twins after controlling for smoking and BMI.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Wienke, A; Herskind, AM; Christensen, K; Skytthe, A; Yashin, AI
Published in: Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies
February 2005

Cause-specific mortality data on Danish monozygotic and dizygotic twins are used to analyze heritability estimates of susceptibility to coronary heart disease (CHD) after controlling for smoking and Body Mass Index (BMI). The sample includes 1209 like-sexed twin pairs born between 1890 and 1920, where both individuals were still alive in 1966. The participants completed a questionnaire in 1966 which included questions on smoking, height and weight. The analysis was conducted with both sexes pooled due to the relatively small number of twin pairs. Follow-up was conducted from January 1, 1966 to December 31, 1993. The correlated gammafrailty model with observed covariates was used for the genetic analysis of frailty to account for censoring and truncation in the lifetime data. During the follow-up, 1437 deaths occurred, including 435 deaths due to CHD. Proportions of variance of frailty attributable to genetic and environmental factors were analyzed using the structural equation model approach. Different standard biometric models are fitted to the data to evaluate the magnitude and nature of genetic and environmental factors on mortality. Using the best-fitting model without covariates, heritability of frailty to CHD was found to be 0.45 (0.11). This result changes only slightly to 0.55 (0.13) in a DE model after controlling for smoking and BMI. This analysis underlines the existence of a substantial genetic influence on individual frailty associated with mortality caused by CHD.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies

DOI

ISSN

1832-4274

Publication Date

February 2005

Volume

8

Issue

1

Start / End Page

53 / 59

Related Subject Headings

  • Smoking
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Genetics & Heredity
  • Female
  • Denmark
  • Coronary Disease
  • Body Mass Index
  • 3215 Reproductive medicine
  • 3202 Clinical sciences
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Wienke, A., Herskind, A. M., Christensen, K., Skytthe, A., & Yashin, A. I. (2005). The heritability of CHD mortality in danish twins after controlling for smoking and BMI. Twin Research and Human Genetics : The Official Journal of the International Society for Twin Studies, 8(1), 53–59. https://doi.org/10.1375/1832427053435328
Journal cover image

Published In

Twin research and human genetics : the official journal of the International Society for Twin Studies

DOI

ISSN

1832-4274

Publication Date

February 2005

Volume

8

Issue

1

Start / End Page

53 / 59

Related Subject Headings

  • Smoking
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Genetics & Heredity
  • Female
  • Denmark
  • Coronary Disease
  • Body Mass Index
  • 3215 Reproductive medicine
  • 3202 Clinical sciences