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      Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Weight, Height, and BMI from Birth to 19 Years of Age: An International Study of Over 12,000 Twin Pairs

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          Abstract

          Objective

          To examine the genetic and environmental influences on variances in weight, height, and BMI, from birth through 19 years of age, in boys and girls from three continents.

          Design and Settings

          Cross-sectional twin study. Data obtained from a total of 23 twin birth-cohorts from four countries: Canada, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia. Participants were Monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) (same- and opposite-sex) twin pairs with data available for both height and weight at a given age, from birth through 19 years of age. Approximately 24,036 children were included in the analyses.

          Results

          Heritability for body weight, height, and BMI was low at birth (between 6.4 and 8.7% for boys, and between 4.8 and 7.9% for girls) but increased over time, accounting for close to half or more of the variance in body weight and BMI after 5 months of age in both sexes. Common environmental influences on all body measures were high at birth (between 74.1–85.9% in all measures for boys, and between 74.2 and 87.3% in all measures for girls) and markedly reduced over time. For body height, the effect of the common environment remained significant for a longer period during early childhood (up through 12 years of age). Sex-limitation of genetic and shared environmental effects was observed.

          Conclusion

          Genetics appear to play an increasingly important role in explaining the variation in weight, height, and BMI from early childhood to late adolescence, particularly in boys. Common environmental factors exert their strongest and most independent influence specifically in pre-adolescent years and more significantly in girls. These findings emphasize the need to target family and social environmental interventions in early childhood years, especially for females. As gene-environment correlation and interaction is likely, it is also necessary to identify the genetic variants that may predispose individuals to obesity.

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          Most cited references98

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          Genetic and environmental factors in relative body weight and human adiposity.

          We review the literature on the familial resemblance of body mass index (BMI) and other adiposity measures and find strikingly convergent results for a variety of relationships. Results from twin studies suggest that genetic factors explain 50 to 90% of the variance in BMI. Family studies generally report estimates of parent-offspring and sibling correlations in agreement with heritabilities of 20 to 80%. Data from adoption studies are consistent with genetic factors accounting for 20 to 60% of the variation in BMI. Based on data from more than 25,000 twin pairs and 50,000 biological and adoptive family members, the weighted mean correlations are .74 for MZ twins, .32 for DZ twins, .25 for siblings, .19 for parent-offspring pairs, .06 for adoptive relatives, and .12 for spouses. Advantages and disadvantages of twin, family, and adoption studies are reviewed. Data from the Virginia 30,000, including twins and their parents, siblings, spouses, and children, were analyzed using a structural equation model (Stealth) which estimates additive and dominance genetic variance, cultural transmission, assortative mating, nonparental shared environment, and special twin and MZ twin environmental variance. Genetic factors explained 67% of the variance in males and females, of which half is due to dominance. A small proportion of the genetic variance was attributed to the consequences of assortative mating. The remainder of the variance is accounted for by unique environmental factors, of which 7% is correlated across twins. No evidence was found for a special MZ twin environment, thereby supporting the equal environment assumption. These results are consistent with other studies in suggesting that genetic factors play a significant role in the causes of individual differences in relative body weight and human adiposity.
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            Socioeconomic status and obesity in adult populations of developing countries: a review.

            A landmark review of studies published prior to 1989 on socioeconomic status (SES) and obesity supported the view that obesity in the developing world would be essentially a disease of the socioeconomic elite. The present review, on studies conducted in adult populations from developing countries, published between 1989 and 2003, shows a different scenario for the relationship between SES and obesity. Although more studies are necessary to clarify the exact nature of this relationship, particularly among men, three main conclusions emerge from the studies reviewed: 1. Obesity in the developing world can no longer be considered solely a disease of groups with higher SES. 2. The burden of obesity in each developing country tends to shift towards the groups with lower SES as the country's gross national product (GNP) increases. 3. The shift of obesity towards women with low SES apparently occurs at an earlier stage of economic development than it does for men. The crossover to higher rates of obesity among women of low SES is found at a GNP per capita of about US$ 2500, the mid-point value for lower-middle-income economies. The results of this review reinforce the urgent need to: include obesity prevention as a relevant topic on the public health agenda in developing countries; improve the access of all social classes in these countries to reliable information on the determinants and consequences of obesity; and design and implement consistent public actions on the physical, economic, and sociocultural environment that make healthier choices concerning diet and physical activity feasible for all. A significant step in this direction was taken with the approval of the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health by the World Health Assembly in May 2004.
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              Obesity in children and young people: a crisis in public health.

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2012
                8 February 2012
                : 7
                : 2
                : e30153
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
                [2 ]Department of Epidemiology & Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
                [3 ]Institute of Regional Health Services Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
                [4 ]Odense Patient Data Explorative Network, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark
                [5 ]Faculté des Arts et des Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
                [6 ]Department of Biostatistics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
                [7 ]Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
                [8 ]Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane, Australia
                [9 ]Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
                Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, United States of America
                Author notes

                Conceived and designed the experiments: LD KOK DP JH AS FR MJW PL NGM. Performed the experiments: KOK DP JH AS FR MJW PL NGM. Analyzed the data: MG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KOK DP JH AS FR MJW PL NGM. Wrote the paper: FTT.

                Article
                PONE-D-11-14346
                10.1371/journal.pone.0030153
                3275599
                22347368
                127b8789-bec6-4c11-8a1c-4ffcbf52c6c7
                Dubois et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
                History
                : 26 July 2011
                : 11 December 2011
                Page count
                Pages: 12
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology
                Computational Biology
                Genomics
                Genetics
                Heredity
                Medicine
                Clinical Research Design
                Epidemiology
                Nutrition

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

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