Genetic and environmental influences on height from infancy to early adulthood: An individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts

Aline Jelenkovic^{1

2}, Reijo Sund¹, Yoon-Mi Hur³, Yoshie Yokoyama⁴, Jacob V B Hjelmborg⁵, Sören Möller⁵, Chika Honda⁶, Patrik K E Magnusson⁷, Nancy L Pedersen⁷, Syuichi Ooki⁸, Sari Aaltonen^{1

9}, Maria A Stazi¹⁰, Corrado Fagnani¹⁰, Cristina D'Ippolito¹⁰, Duarte L Freitas¹¹, José Antonio Maia¹², Fuling Ji¹³, Feng Ning¹³, Zengchang Pang¹³, Esther Rebato², Andreas Busjahn¹⁴, Christian Kandler¹⁵, Kimberly J Saudino¹⁶, Kerry L Jang¹⁷, Wendy Cozen^{18

19}, Amie E Hwang¹⁸, Thomas M Mack^{18

19}, Wenjing Gao²⁰, Canqing Yu²⁰, Liming Li²⁰, Robin P Corley²¹, Brooke M Huibregtse²¹, Catherine A Derom^{22

23}, Robert F Vlietinck²², Ruth J F Loos²⁴, Kauko Heikkilä⁹, Jane Wardle²⁵, Clare H Llewellyn²⁵, Abigail Fisher²⁵, Tom A McAdams²⁶, Thalia C Eley²⁶, Alice M Gregory²⁷, Mingguang He^{28

29}, Xiaohu Ding²⁸, Morten Bjerregaard-Andersen^{30

31

32}, Henning Beck-Nielsen³², Morten Sodemann³³, Adam D Tarnoki^{34

35}, David L Tarnoki^{34

35}, Ariel Knafo-Noam³⁶, David Mankuta³⁷, Lior Abramson³⁶, S Alexandra Burt³⁸, Kelly L Klump³⁸, Judy L Silberg³⁹, Lindon J Eaves³⁹, Hermine H Maes⁴⁰, Robert F Krueger⁴¹, Matt McGue⁴¹, Shandell Pahlen⁴¹, Margaret Gatz^{42

7}, David A Butler⁴³, Meike Bartels⁴⁴, Toos C E M van Beijsterveldt⁴⁴, Jeffrey M Craig^{45

46}, Richard Saffery^{45

46}, Lise Dubois⁴⁷, Michel Boivin^{48

49}, Mara Brendgen⁵⁰, Ginette Dionne⁴⁸, Frank Vitaro⁵¹, Nicholas G Martin⁵², Sarah E Medland⁵², Grant W Montgomery⁵³, Gary E Swan⁵⁴, Ruth Krasnow⁵⁵, Per Tynelius⁵⁶, Paul Lichtenstein⁷, Claire M A Haworth⁵⁷, Robert Plomin²⁶, Gombojav Bayasgalan⁵⁸, Danshiitsoodol Narandalai^{59

58}, K Paige Harden⁶⁰, Elliot M Tucker-Drob⁶⁰, Timothy Spector⁶¹, Massimo Mangino⁶¹, Genevieve Lachance⁶¹, Laura A Baker⁴², Catherine Tuvblad^{42

62}, Glen E Duncan⁶³, Dedra Buchwald⁶⁴, Gonneke Willemsen⁴⁴, Axel Skytthe⁵, Kirsten O Kyvik^{65

66}, Kaare Christensen^{5

67}, Sevgi Y Öncel⁶⁸, Fazil Aliev⁶⁹, Finn Rasmussen⁵⁶, Jack H Goldberg⁷⁰, Thorkild I A Sørensen^{71

72}, Dorret I Boomsma⁴⁴, Jaakko Kaprio^{9

73

74}, Karri Silventoinen^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
² Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain.
³ Department of Education, Mokpo National University, Jeonnam, South Korea.
⁴ Department of Public Health Nursing, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan.
⁵ The Danish Twin Registry, Department of Public Health, Epidemiology, Biostatistics &Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
⁶ Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
⁷ Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁸ Department of Health Science, Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University, Kahoku, Ishikawa, Japan.
⁹ Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
¹⁰ Istituto Superiore di Sanità - National Center for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, Rome, Italy.
¹¹ Department of Physical Education and Sport, University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal.
¹² CIFI2D, Faculty of Sport, Porto, University of Porto, Portugal.
¹³ Department of Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention, Qingdao Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Qingdao, China.
¹⁴ HealthTwiSt GmbH, Berlin, Germany.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
¹⁶ Boston University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciencies, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
¹⁸ Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
¹⁹ USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, California, USA.
²⁰ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
²¹ Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
²² Centre of Human Genetics, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
²³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ghent University Hospitals, Ghent, Belgium.
²⁴ 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.
²⁵ Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, London, UK.
²⁶ King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic &Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology &Neuroscience, London, UK.
²⁷ Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK.
²⁸ State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
²⁹ Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
³⁰ Bandim Health Project, INDEPTH Network, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.
³¹ Research Center for Vitamins and Vaccines, Statens Serum Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark.
³² Department of Endocrinology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
³³ Department of Infectious Diseases, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
³⁴ Department of Radiology and Oncotherapy, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
³⁵ Hungarian Twin Registry, Budapest, Hungary.
³⁶ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
³⁷ Hadassah Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel.
³⁸ Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
³⁹ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Psychiatry &Massey Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
⁴¹ Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
⁴² Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴³ Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, USA.
⁴⁴ Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
⁴⁵ Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁴⁶ Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁴⁷ School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁴⁸ École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
⁴⁹ Institute of Genetic, Neurobiological, and Social Foundations of Child Development, Tomsk State University, Russian Federation.
⁵⁰ Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
⁵¹ École de psychoéducation, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
⁵² Genetic Epidemiology Department, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
⁵³ Molecular Epidemiology Department, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
⁵⁴ Stanford Prevention Research Center, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁵⁵ Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
⁵⁶ Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁵⁷ MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K.
⁵⁸ Healthy Twin Association of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
⁵⁹ Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan.
⁶⁰ Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
⁶¹ Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King's College, London, UK.
⁶² School of Law, Psychology and Social Work, Örebro University, Sweden.
⁶³ Washington State Twin Registry, Washington State University - Health Sciences Spokane, Spokane, WA, USA.
⁶⁴ Washington State Twin Registry, Washington State University, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁶⁵ Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
⁶⁶ Odense Patient data Explorative Network (OPEN), Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
⁶⁷ Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Pharmacology and Department of Clinical Genetics, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
⁶⁸ Department of Statistics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Kırıkkale University, Kırıkkale, Turkey.
⁶⁹ Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA.
⁷⁰ Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁷¹ Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research (Section on Metabolic Genetics) and Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁷² Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospitals, The Capital Region, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁷³ National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
⁷⁴ Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, Helsinki, Finland.

PMID: 27333805
PMCID: PMC4917845
DOI: 10.1038/srep28496

Genetic and environmental influences on height from infancy to early adulthood: An individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts

Aline Jelenkovic et al. Sci Rep. 2016.

. 2016 Jun 23:6:28496.

doi: 10.1038/srep28496.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
² Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain.
³ Department of Education, Mokpo National University, Jeonnam, South Korea.
⁴ Department of Public Health Nursing, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan.
⁵ The Danish Twin Registry, Department of Public Health, Epidemiology, Biostatistics &Biodemography, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
⁶ Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
⁷ Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁸ Department of Health Science, Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University, Kahoku, Ishikawa, Japan.
⁹ Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
¹⁰ Istituto Superiore di Sanità - National Center for Epidemiology, Surveillance and Health Promotion, Rome, Italy.
¹¹ Department of Physical Education and Sport, University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal.
¹² CIFI2D, Faculty of Sport, Porto, University of Porto, Portugal.
¹³ Department of Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention, Qingdao Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Qingdao, China.
¹⁴ HealthTwiSt GmbH, Berlin, Germany.
¹⁵ Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
¹⁶ Boston University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciencies, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
¹⁸ Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
¹⁹ USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, California, USA.
²⁰ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
²¹ Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
²² Centre of Human Genetics, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
²³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ghent University Hospitals, Ghent, Belgium.
²⁴ 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.
²⁵ Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, London, UK.
²⁶ King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic &Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology &Neuroscience, London, UK.
²⁷ Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK.
²⁸ State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
²⁹ Centre for Eye Research Australia, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
³⁰ Bandim Health Project, INDEPTH Network, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.
³¹ Research Center for Vitamins and Vaccines, Statens Serum Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark.
³² Department of Endocrinology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
³³ Department of Infectious Diseases, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
³⁴ Department of Radiology and Oncotherapy, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
³⁵ Hungarian Twin Registry, Budapest, Hungary.
³⁶ The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
³⁷ Hadassah Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel.
³⁸ Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.
³⁹ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
⁴⁰ Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Psychiatry &Massey Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
⁴¹ Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
⁴² Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴³ Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, USA.
⁴⁴ Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
⁴⁵ Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁴⁶ Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁴⁷ School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
⁴⁸ École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada.
⁴⁹ Institute of Genetic, Neurobiological, and Social Foundations of Child Development, Tomsk State University, Russian Federation.
⁵⁰ Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
⁵¹ École de psychoéducation, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
⁵² Genetic Epidemiology Department, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
⁵³ Molecular Epidemiology Department, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia.
⁵⁴ Stanford Prevention Research Center, Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁵⁵ Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA, USA.
⁵⁶ Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁵⁷ MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K.
⁵⁸ Healthy Twin Association of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
⁵⁹ Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan.
⁶⁰ Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
⁶¹ Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King's College, London, UK.
⁶² School of Law, Psychology and Social Work, Örebro University, Sweden.
⁶³ Washington State Twin Registry, Washington State University - Health Sciences Spokane, Spokane, WA, USA.
⁶⁴ Washington State Twin Registry, Washington State University, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁶⁵ Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
⁶⁶ Odense Patient data Explorative Network (OPEN), Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
⁶⁷ Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Pharmacology and Department of Clinical Genetics, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark.
⁶⁸ Department of Statistics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Kırıkkale University, Kırıkkale, Turkey.
⁶⁹ Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA.
⁷⁰ Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁷¹ Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research (Section on Metabolic Genetics) and Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁷² Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospitals, The Capital Region, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁷³ National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.
⁷⁴ Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, Helsinki, Finland.

PMID: 27333805
PMCID: PMC4917845
DOI: 10.1038/srep28496

Abstract

Height variation is known to be determined by both genetic and environmental factors, but a systematic description of how their influences differ by sex, age and global regions is lacking. We conducted an individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts from 20 countries, including 180,520 paired measurements at ages 1-19 years. The proportion of height variation explained by shared environmental factors was greatest in early childhood, but these effects remained present until early adulthood. Accordingly, the relative genetic contribution increased with age and was greatest in adolescence (up to 0.83 in boys and 0.76 in girls). Comparing geographic-cultural regions (Europe, North-America and Australia, and East-Asia), genetic variance was greatest in North-America and Australia and lowest in East-Asia, but the relative proportion of genetic variation was roughly similar across these regions. Our findings provide further insights into height variation during childhood and adolescence in populations representing different ethnicities and exposed to different environments.

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Figures

**Figure 1**
Proportion of height variation explained by additive genetic (**a,b**), shared environmental (**c,d**) and specific environmental (**e,f**) factors with 95% confidence intervals by age and sex for all cohorts together.

**Figure 2. Additive genetic correlations with 95% confidence intervals within opposite-sex DZ pairs by age for all cohorts together.**

**Figure 3**
Proportion of height variation with 95% confidence intervals explained by additive genetic factors separately by age and sex in Europe (**a,b**), North America and Australia (**c,d**) and East Asia (**e,f**).

Figure 4. Change of additive genetic (dash line), common environmental (solid line) and unique environmental (dot line) variance with increasing age in quadratic gene-environment interaction model in Europe, North America and Australia and East Asia.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

1. Galton F. Regression towards mediocrity in heriditary stature. Journal of the Anthropological Institute 15, 246–262 (1886).
1. Pearson K. & Lee A. On the laws on inheritance in man. Biometrika 2, 356–462 (1903).
1. Fisher R. A. The correlation between relatives on the supposition of Mendelian inheritance. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 52, 399–433 (1918).
1. Silventoinen K. Determinants of variation in adult body height. J. Biosoc. Sci. 35, 263–285 (2003). - PubMed
1. Perola M. et al.. Combined genome scans for body stature in 6,602 European twins: evidence for common Caucasian loci. PLoS Genet. 3, e97 (2007). - PMC - PubMed

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Genetic and environmental influences on height from infancy to early adulthood: An individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts

Affiliations

Genetic and environmental influences on height from infancy to early adulthood: An individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Figures

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources

Medical