PMID: 9449140Feb 4, 1998Paper

Familial resemblance for body composition measures: the HERITAGE Family Study

Obesity Research
T RiceD C Rao

Abstract

A sex-specific familial correlation model was used to assess the heritable contributions to several measures of body composition in 86 sedentary white families participating in the HERITAGE Family Study. For this study, sedentary families were recruited, tested for a battery of measures, endurance exercise trained for 20 weeks, and remeasured. This sample is unique in that activity level was controlled for in these families at baseline measurement. In this report, three body composition variables measured at baseline were analyzed, two indexing adiposity (total subcutaneous fat based on eight skinfold measurements [SF8] and percent body fat measured by underwater weighing techniques [%BF]) and one assessing fat free mass ([FFM] derived from underwater weighing). The maximal heritabilities for SF8 (34%) and %BF (62%) were consistent with those reported in previous studies. There were no sex nor generation differences in the familial correlations, and the spouse correlation was significant, consistent with the hypothesis that the familial aggregation reflects genetic and familial environmental factors. However, the results for FFM were very different. The most parsimonious pattern of familial resemblance was consistent with mitoc...Continue Reading

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