Background: We estimated genetic heritability and common environmental influences for various traits related to metabolic syndrome in young families from France.
Methods: At entrance and after 5 years, nineteen traits related to metabolic syndrome were measured in a sample of families drawn from the STANISLAS study. In addition, 5 aggregates of these traits were identified using factor analysis.
Results: At entrance, genetic heritability was high (20 to 44%) for plasma lipids and lipoproteins, uric acid, fasting glucose, and the related clusters "risk lipids" and "protective lipids". Intermediate or low genetic heritability (less than 20%) was shown for triglycerides, adiposity indices, blood pressure, hepatic enzyme activity, inflammatory makers and the related clusters: "liver enzymes", "adiposity/blood pressure" and "inflammation". Moreover, common environmental influences were significant for all the parameters. With regard to 5-year changes, polygenic variance was low and not statistically significant for any of the individual variables or clusters whereas shared environment influence was significant.
Conclusions: In these young families, genetic heritability of metabolic syndrome-related traits was generally lower than previously reported while the common environmental influences were greater. In addition, only shared environment contributed to short-term changes of these traits.
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