The CODATwins Project: The Cohort Description of Collaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins to Study Macro-Environmental Variation in Genetic and Environmental Effects on Anthropometric Traits

Karri Silventoinen¹, Aline Jelenkovic¹, Reijo Sund¹, Chika Honda², Sari Aaltonen¹, Yoshie Yokoyama³, Adam D Tarnoki⁴, David L Tarnoki⁴, Feng Ning⁵, Fuling Ji⁵, Zengchang Pang⁵, Juan R Ordoñana⁶, Juan F Sánchez-Romera⁷, Lucia Colodro-Conde⁶, S Alexandra Burt⁸, Kelly L Klump⁸, Sarah E Medland⁹, Grant W Montgomery⁹, Christian Kandler¹⁰, Tom A McAdams¹¹, Thalia C Eley¹¹, Alice M Gregory¹², Kimberly J Saudino¹³, Lise Dubois¹⁴, Michel Boivin¹⁵, Claire M A Haworth¹⁶, Robert Plomin¹¹, Sevgi Y Öncel¹⁷, Fazil Aliev¹⁸, Maria A Stazi¹⁹, Corrado Fagnani¹⁹, Cristina D'Ippolito¹⁹, Jeffrey M Craig²⁰, Richard Saffery²⁰, Sisira H Siribaddana²¹, Matthew Hotopf²², Athula Sumathipala²¹, Timothy Spector²³, Massimo Mangino²³, Genevieve Lachance²³, Margaret Gatz²⁴, David A Butler²⁵, Gombojav Bayasgalan²⁶, Danshiitsoodol Narandalai²⁶, Duarte L Freitas²⁷, José Antonio Maia²⁸, K Paige Harden²⁹, Elliot M Tucker-Drob²⁹, Kaare Christensen³⁰, Axel Skytthe³⁰, Kirsten O Kyvik³¹, Changhee Hong³², Youngsook Chong³², Catherine A Derom³³, Robert F Vlietinck³³, Ruth J F Loos³⁴, Wendy Cozen³⁵, Amie E Hwang³⁵, Thomas M Mack³⁵, Mingguang He³⁶, Xiaohu Ding³⁶, Billy Chang³⁶, Judy L Silberg³⁷, Lindon J Eaves³⁷, Hermine H Maes³⁸, Tessa L Cutler³⁹, John L Hopper³⁹, Kelly Aujard⁴⁰, Patrik K E Magnusson⁴¹, Nancy L Pedersen⁴¹, Anna K Dahl Aslan⁴¹, Yun-Mi Song⁴², Sarah Yang⁴³, Kayoung Lee⁴⁴, Laura A Baker²⁴, Catherine Tuvblad²⁴, Morten Bjerregaard-Andersen⁴⁵, Henning Beck-Nielsen⁴⁶, Morten Sodemann⁴⁷, Kauko Heikkilä⁴⁸, Qihua Tan⁴⁹, Dongfeng Zhang⁵⁰, Gary E Swan⁵¹, Ruth Krasnow⁵², Kerry L Jang⁵³, Ariel Knafo-Noam⁵⁴, David Mankuta⁵⁵, Lior Abramson⁵⁴, Paul Lichtenstein⁴¹, Robert F Krueger⁵⁶, Matt McGue⁵⁶, Shandell Pahlen⁵⁶, Per Tynelius⁵⁷, Glen E Duncan⁵⁸, Dedra Buchwald⁵⁸, Robin P Corley⁵⁹, Brooke M Huibregtse⁵⁹, Tracy L Nelson⁶⁰, Keith E Whitfield⁶¹, Carol E Franz⁶², William S Kremen⁶², Michael J Lyons⁶³, Syuichi Ooki⁶⁴, Ingunn Brandt⁶⁵, Thomas Sevenius Nilsen⁶⁵, Fujio Inui², Mikio Watanabe², Meike Bartels⁶⁶, Toos C E M van Beijsterveldt⁶⁶, Jane Wardle⁶⁷, Clare H Llewellyn⁶⁷, Abigail Fisher⁶⁷, Esther Rebato⁶⁸, Nicholas G Martin⁹, Yoshinori Iwatani², Kazuo Hayakawa², Finn Rasmussen⁵⁷, Joohon Sung⁴³, Jennifer R Harris⁶⁵, Gonneke Willemsen⁶⁶, Andreas Busjahn⁶⁹, Jack H Goldberg⁷⁰, Dorret I Boomsma⁶⁶, Yoon-Mi Hur⁷¹, Thorkild I A Sørensen⁷², Jaakko Kaprio⁴⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Social Research,University of Helsinki,Helsinki,Finland.
² Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine,Osaka University,Osaka,Japan.
³ Department of Public Health Nursing,Osaka City University,Osaka,Japan.
⁴ Department of Radiology and Oncotherapy,Semmelweis University,Budapest,Hungary.
⁵ Department of Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention,Qingdao Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,Qingdao,China.
⁶ Department of Human Anatomy and Psychobiology,University of Murcia,Murcia,Spain.
⁷ IMIB-Arrixaca,Murcia,Spain.
⁸ Michigan State University,East Lansing,MI,USA.
⁹ QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute,Brisbane,Queensland,Australia.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology,Bielefeld University,Bielefeld,Germany.
¹¹ MRC Social,Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre,Institute of Psychiatry,Psychology & Neuroscience,King's College London,London,UK.
¹² Department of Psychology,Goldsmiths,University of London,London,UK.
¹³ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences,Boston University,Boston,MA,USA.
¹⁴ School of Epidemiology,Public Health and Preventive Medicine,University of Ottawa,Ottawa,Ontario,Canada.
¹⁵ École de psychologie,Université Laval,Québec,Canada.
¹⁶ Department of Psychology,University of Warwick Coventry,Coventry,UK.
¹⁷ Department of Statistics,Faculty of Arts and Sciences,Kırıkkale University,Kırıkkale,Turkey.
¹⁸ Departments of Psychiatry,Psychology,and Human and Molecular Genetics,Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA,USA.
¹⁹ Istituto Superiore di Sanità -- National Center for Epidemiology,Surveillance and Health Promotion,Rome,Italy.
²⁰ Murdoch Childrens Research Institute,Royal Children's Hospital,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia.
²¹ Institute of Research & Development,Battaramulla,Sri Lanka.
²² NIHR Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre,South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and,Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience,King's College London,London,UK.
²³ Department of Twin Research and Genetic epidemiology,King's College,London,UK.
²⁴ Department of Psychology,University of Southern California,Los Angeles,CA,USA.
²⁵ Institute of Medicine,National Academy of Sciences,Washington,DC,USA.
²⁶ Healthy Twin Association of Mongolia,Ulaanbaatar,Mongolia.
²⁷ Department of Physical Education and Sport,University of Madeira,Funchal,Portugal.
²⁸ CIFI2D,Faculty of Sport,University of Porto,Porto,Portugal.
²⁹ Department of Psychology,University of Texas at Austin,Austin,TX,USA.
³⁰ The Danish Twin Registry,Institute of Public Health,Epidemiology,Biostatistics & Biodemography,University of Southern Denmark,Odense,Denmark.
³¹ Department of Clinical Research,University of Southern Denmark,Odense,Denmark.
³² Department of Psychology,Pusan National University,Busan,South Korea.
³³ Centre of Human Genetics,University Hospitals Leuven,Leuven,Belgium.
³⁴ The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine,The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute,Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,New York,NY,USA.
³⁵ Department of Preventive Medicine,Keck School of Medicine of USC,University of Southern California,Los Angeles,CA,USA.
³⁶ State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology,Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center,Sun Yat-sen University,Guangzhou,China.
³⁷ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics,Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA,USA.
³⁸ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics,Psychiatry & Massey Cancer Center,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA,USA.
³⁹ The Australian Twin Registry,Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics,The University of Melbourne,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia.
⁴⁰ Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics,The University of Melbourne,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia.
⁴¹ Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics,Karolinska Institutet,Stockholm,Sweden.
⁴² Department of Family Medicine,Samsung Medical Center,Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine,Seoul,South Korea.
⁴³ Department of Epidemiology,School of Public Health,Seoul National University,Seoul,South Korea.
⁴⁴ Department of Family Medicine,Busan Paik Hospital,Inje University College of Medicine,Busan,South Korea.
⁴⁵ Bandim Health Project,INDEPTH Network,Apartado,Bissau Codex,Guinea-Bissau.
⁴⁶ Department of Endocrinology,Odense University Hospital,Odense,Denmark.
⁴⁷ Department of Infectious Diseases,Odense University Hospital,Odense,Denmark.
⁴⁸ Department of Public Health,University of Helsinki,Helsinki,Finland.
⁴⁹ Epidemiology,Biostatistics and Biodemography,Institute of Public Health,University of Southern Denmark,Odense,Denmark.
⁵⁰ Department of Public Health,Qingdao University Medical College,Qingdao,China.
⁵¹ Stanford Prevention Research Center,Department of Medicine,Stanford University School of Medicine,Stanford,CA,USA.
⁵² Center for Health Sciences,SRI International,Menlo Park,CA,USA.
⁵³ Department of Psychiatry,University of British Columbia,Vancouver,British Columbia,Canada.
⁵⁴ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,Jerusalem,Israel.
⁵⁵ Hadassah Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Department,Hebrew University Medical School,Jerusalem,Israel.
⁵⁶ Department of Psychology,University of Minnesota,Minneapolis,MN,USA.
⁵⁷ Department of Public Health Sciences,Karolinska Institutet,Stockholm,Sweden.
⁵⁸ Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research,University of Washington,Seattle,WA,USA.
⁵⁹ Institute for Behavioral Genetics,Boulder,CO,USA.
⁶⁰ Department of Health and Exercise Sciences and Colorado School of Public Health,Colorado State University,Fort Collins,CO,USA.
⁶¹ Psychology and Neuroscience,Duke University,Durham,NC,USA.
⁶² Department of Psychiatry,University of California,San Diego,CA,USA.
⁶³ Boston University,Department of Psychology,Boston,MA,USA.
⁶⁴ Department of Health Science,Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University,Kahoku,Ishikawa,Japan.
⁶⁵ Norwegian Institute of Public Health,Division of Epidemiology,Department of Genes and Environment,Oslo,Norway.
⁶⁶ Department of Biological Psychology,VU University Amsterdam,Amsterdam,Netherlands.
⁶⁷ Health Behaviour Research Centre,Department of Epidemiology and Public Health,Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care,University College London,London,UK.
⁶⁸ Department of Genetics,Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology,University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU,Leioa,Spain.
⁶⁹ HealthTwiSt GmbH,Berlin,Germany.
⁷⁰ Department of Epidemiology,School of Public Health,University of Washington,Seattle,WA,USA.
⁷¹ Department of Education,Mokpo National University,Jeonnam,South Korea.
⁷² Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research,Section on Metabolic Genetics,Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences,University of Copenhagen,Copenhagen,Denmark.

PMID: 26014041
PMCID: PMC4696543
DOI: 10.1017/thg.2015.29

The CODATwins Project: The Cohort Description of Collaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins to Study Macro-Environmental Variation in Genetic and Environmental Effects on Anthropometric Traits

Karri Silventoinen et al. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2015 Aug.

. 2015 Aug;18(4):348-60.

doi: 10.1017/thg.2015.29. Epub 2015 May 27.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Social Research,University of Helsinki,Helsinki,Finland.
² Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine,Osaka University,Osaka,Japan.
³ Department of Public Health Nursing,Osaka City University,Osaka,Japan.
⁴ Department of Radiology and Oncotherapy,Semmelweis University,Budapest,Hungary.
⁵ Department of Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention,Qingdao Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,Qingdao,China.
⁶ Department of Human Anatomy and Psychobiology,University of Murcia,Murcia,Spain.
⁷ IMIB-Arrixaca,Murcia,Spain.
⁸ Michigan State University,East Lansing,MI,USA.
⁹ QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute,Brisbane,Queensland,Australia.
¹⁰ Department of Psychology,Bielefeld University,Bielefeld,Germany.
¹¹ MRC Social,Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre,Institute of Psychiatry,Psychology & Neuroscience,King's College London,London,UK.
¹² Department of Psychology,Goldsmiths,University of London,London,UK.
¹³ Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences,Boston University,Boston,MA,USA.
¹⁴ School of Epidemiology,Public Health and Preventive Medicine,University of Ottawa,Ottawa,Ontario,Canada.
¹⁵ École de psychologie,Université Laval,Québec,Canada.
¹⁶ Department of Psychology,University of Warwick Coventry,Coventry,UK.
¹⁷ Department of Statistics,Faculty of Arts and Sciences,Kırıkkale University,Kırıkkale,Turkey.
¹⁸ Departments of Psychiatry,Psychology,and Human and Molecular Genetics,Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA,USA.
¹⁹ Istituto Superiore di Sanità -- National Center for Epidemiology,Surveillance and Health Promotion,Rome,Italy.
²⁰ Murdoch Childrens Research Institute,Royal Children's Hospital,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia.
²¹ Institute of Research & Development,Battaramulla,Sri Lanka.
²² NIHR Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre,South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and,Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience,King's College London,London,UK.
²³ Department of Twin Research and Genetic epidemiology,King's College,London,UK.
²⁴ Department of Psychology,University of Southern California,Los Angeles,CA,USA.
²⁵ Institute of Medicine,National Academy of Sciences,Washington,DC,USA.
²⁶ Healthy Twin Association of Mongolia,Ulaanbaatar,Mongolia.
²⁷ Department of Physical Education and Sport,University of Madeira,Funchal,Portugal.
²⁸ CIFI2D,Faculty of Sport,University of Porto,Porto,Portugal.
²⁹ Department of Psychology,University of Texas at Austin,Austin,TX,USA.
³⁰ The Danish Twin Registry,Institute of Public Health,Epidemiology,Biostatistics & Biodemography,University of Southern Denmark,Odense,Denmark.
³¹ Department of Clinical Research,University of Southern Denmark,Odense,Denmark.
³² Department of Psychology,Pusan National University,Busan,South Korea.
³³ Centre of Human Genetics,University Hospitals Leuven,Leuven,Belgium.
³⁴ The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine,The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute,Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,New York,NY,USA.
³⁵ Department of Preventive Medicine,Keck School of Medicine of USC,University of Southern California,Los Angeles,CA,USA.
³⁶ State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology,Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center,Sun Yat-sen University,Guangzhou,China.
³⁷ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics,Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA,USA.
³⁸ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics,Psychiatry & Massey Cancer Center,Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA,USA.
³⁹ The Australian Twin Registry,Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics,The University of Melbourne,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia.
⁴⁰ Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics,The University of Melbourne,Melbourne,Victoria,Australia.
⁴¹ Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics,Karolinska Institutet,Stockholm,Sweden.
⁴² Department of Family Medicine,Samsung Medical Center,Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine,Seoul,South Korea.
⁴³ Department of Epidemiology,School of Public Health,Seoul National University,Seoul,South Korea.
⁴⁴ Department of Family Medicine,Busan Paik Hospital,Inje University College of Medicine,Busan,South Korea.
⁴⁵ Bandim Health Project,INDEPTH Network,Apartado,Bissau Codex,Guinea-Bissau.
⁴⁶ Department of Endocrinology,Odense University Hospital,Odense,Denmark.
⁴⁷ Department of Infectious Diseases,Odense University Hospital,Odense,Denmark.
⁴⁸ Department of Public Health,University of Helsinki,Helsinki,Finland.
⁴⁹ Epidemiology,Biostatistics and Biodemography,Institute of Public Health,University of Southern Denmark,Odense,Denmark.
⁵⁰ Department of Public Health,Qingdao University Medical College,Qingdao,China.
⁵¹ Stanford Prevention Research Center,Department of Medicine,Stanford University School of Medicine,Stanford,CA,USA.
⁵² Center for Health Sciences,SRI International,Menlo Park,CA,USA.
⁵³ Department of Psychiatry,University of British Columbia,Vancouver,British Columbia,Canada.
⁵⁴ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,Jerusalem,Israel.
⁵⁵ Hadassah Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Department,Hebrew University Medical School,Jerusalem,Israel.
⁵⁶ Department of Psychology,University of Minnesota,Minneapolis,MN,USA.
⁵⁷ Department of Public Health Sciences,Karolinska Institutet,Stockholm,Sweden.
⁵⁸ Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research,University of Washington,Seattle,WA,USA.
⁵⁹ Institute for Behavioral Genetics,Boulder,CO,USA.
⁶⁰ Department of Health and Exercise Sciences and Colorado School of Public Health,Colorado State University,Fort Collins,CO,USA.
⁶¹ Psychology and Neuroscience,Duke University,Durham,NC,USA.
⁶² Department of Psychiatry,University of California,San Diego,CA,USA.
⁶³ Boston University,Department of Psychology,Boston,MA,USA.
⁶⁴ Department of Health Science,Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University,Kahoku,Ishikawa,Japan.
⁶⁵ Norwegian Institute of Public Health,Division of Epidemiology,Department of Genes and Environment,Oslo,Norway.
⁶⁶ Department of Biological Psychology,VU University Amsterdam,Amsterdam,Netherlands.
⁶⁷ Health Behaviour Research Centre,Department of Epidemiology and Public Health,Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care,University College London,London,UK.
⁶⁸ Department of Genetics,Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology,University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU,Leioa,Spain.
⁶⁹ HealthTwiSt GmbH,Berlin,Germany.
⁷⁰ Department of Epidemiology,School of Public Health,University of Washington,Seattle,WA,USA.
⁷¹ Department of Education,Mokpo National University,Jeonnam,South Korea.
⁷² Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research,Section on Metabolic Genetics,Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences,University of Copenhagen,Copenhagen,Denmark.

PMID: 26014041
PMCID: PMC4696543
DOI: 10.1017/thg.2015.29

Abstract

For over 100 years, the genetics of human anthropometric traits has attracted scientific interest. In particular, height and body mass index (BMI, calculated as kg/m2) have been under intensive genetic research. However, it is still largely unknown whether and how heritability estimates vary between human populations. Opportunities to address this question have increased recently because of the establishment of many new twin cohorts and the increasing accumulation of data in established twin cohorts. We started a new research project to analyze systematically (1) the variation of heritability estimates of height, BMI and their trajectories over the life course between birth cohorts, ethnicities and countries, and (2) to study the effects of birth-related factors, education and smoking on these anthropometric traits and whether these effects vary between twin cohorts. We identified 67 twin projects, including both monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, using various sources. We asked for individual level data on height and weight including repeated measurements, birth related traits, background variables, education and smoking. By the end of 2014, 48 projects participated. Together, we have 893,458 height and weight measures (52% females) from 434,723 twin individuals, including 201,192 complete twin pairs (40% monozygotic, 40% same-sex dizygotic and 20% opposite-sex dizygotic) representing 22 countries. This project demonstrates that large-scale international twin studies are feasible and can promote the use of existing data for novel research purposes.

Keywords: BMI; height; heritability; international comparisons; twins.

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Figures

**Figure 1**
Accumulation of the CODATwins database.

**Figure 2**
Number of height and weight measures by sex and age.

**Figure 3**
Number of complete twin pairs by birth year and zygosity.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

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The CODATwins Project: The Cohort Description of Collaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins to Study Macro-Environmental Variation in Genetic and Environmental Effects on Anthropometric Traits

Affiliations

The CODATwins Project: The Cohort Description of Collaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins to Study Macro-Environmental Variation in Genetic and Environmental Effects on Anthropometric Traits

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Figures

References

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Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

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