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Heritability and familiality of type 2 diabetes and related quantitative traits in the Botnia Study.

Author

  • Peter Almgren
  • M Lehtovirta
  • B Isomaa
  • L Sarelin
  • M R Taskinen
  • Valeriya Lyssenko
  • Tiinamaija Tuomi
  • Leif Groop

Summary, in English

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS:

To study the heritability and familiality of type 2 diabetes and related quantitative traits in families from the Botnia Study in Finland.



METHODS:

Heritability estimates for type 2 diabetes adjusted for sex, age and BMI are provided for different age groups of type 2 diabetes and for 34 clinical and metabolic traits in 5,810 individuals from 942 families using a variance component model (SOLAR). In addition, family means of these traits and their distribution across families are calculated.



RESULTS:

The strongest heritability for type 2 diabetes was seen in patients with age at onset 35-60 years (h (2) = 0.69). However, including patients with onset up to 75 years dropped the h (2) estimates to 0.31. Among quantitative traits, the highest h (2) estimates in all individuals and in non-diabetic individuals were seen for lean body mass (h (2) = 0.53-0.65), HDL-cholesterol (0.52-0.61) and suppression of NEFA during OGTT (0.63-0.76) followed by measures of insulin secretion (insulinogenic index [IG(30)] = 0.41-0.50) and insulin action (insulin sensitivity index [ISI] = 0.37-0.40). In contrast, physical activity showed rather low heritability (0.16-0.18), whereas smoking showed strong heritability (0.57-0.59). Family means of these traits differed two- to fivefold between families belonging to the lowest and highest quartile of the trait (p < 0.00001).



CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION:

To detect stronger genetic effects in type 2 diabetes, it seems reasonable to restrict inclusion of patients to those with age at onset 35-60 years. Sequencing of families with extreme quantitative traits could be an important next step in the dissection of the genetics of type 2 diabetes.

Topic

  • Endocrinology and Diabetes

Status

Published

Research group

  • Genomics, Diabetes and Endocrinology

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1432-0428