Aline Jelenkovic1, Yoshie Yokoyama2, Reijo Sund3, Yoon-Mi Hur4, Jennifer R Harris5, Ingunn Brandt5, Thomas Sevenius Nilsen5, Syuichi Ooki6, Vilhelmina Ullemar7, Catarina Almqvist8, Patrik K E Magnusson7, Kimberly J Saudino9, Maria A Stazi10, Corrado Fagnani10, Sonia Brescianini10, Tracy L Nelson11, Keith E Whitfield12, Ariel Knafo-Noam13, David Mankuta14, Lior Abramson13, Tessa L Cutler15, John L Hopper16, Clare H Llewellyn17, Abigail Fisher17, Robin P Corley18, Brooke M Huibregtse18, Catherine A Derom19, Robert F Vlietinck20, Morten Bjerregaard-Andersen21, Henning Beck-Nielsen22, Morten Sodemann23, Robert F Krueger24, Matt McGue24, Shandell Pahlen24, S Alexandra Burt25, Kelly L Klump25, Lise Dubois26, Michel Boivin27, Mara Brendgen28, Ginette Dionne29, Frank Vitaro30, Gonneke Willemsen31, Meike Bartels31, Catharina E M van Beijsterveld31, Jeffrey M Craig32, Richard Saffery32, Finn Rasmussen33, Per Tynelius34, Kauko Heikkilä35, Kirsi H Pietiläinen36, Gombojav Bayasgalan37, Danshiitsoodol Narandalai38, Claire M A Haworth39, Robert Plomin40, Fuling Ji41, Feng Ning41, Zengchang Pang41, Esther Rebato42, Adam D Tarnoki43, David L Tarnoki43, Jina Kim44, Jooyeon Lee44, Sooji Lee44, Joohon Sung45, Ruth J F Loos46, Dorret I Boomsma31, Thorkild I A Sørensen47, Jaakko Kaprio48, Karri Silventoinen49. 1. Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain. Electronic address: aline.jelenkovic@helsinki.fi. 2. Department of Public Health Nursing, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan. 3. Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland. 4. Department of Education, Mokpo National University, Jeonnam, South Korea. 5. Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway. 6. Department of Health Science, Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University, Kahoku, Ishikawa, Japan. 7. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. 8. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonology Unit at Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. 9. Boston University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston, MA, USA. 10. Istituto Superiore di Sanità - Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health, Rome, Italy. 11. Department of Health and Exercise Sciences, Colorado School of Public Health, Colorado State University, USA. 12. Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. 13. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. 14. Hadassah Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. 15. The Australian Twin Registry, Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 16. The Australian Twin Registry, Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. 17. Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, London, UK. 18. Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. 19. Centre of Human Genetics, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ghent University Hospitals, Ghent, Belgium. 20. Centre of Human Genetics, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. 21. Bandim Health Project, INDEPTH Network, Bissau, Guinea-Bissau; Research Center for Vitamins and Vaccines, Statens Serum Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Endocrinology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark. 22. Department of Endocrinology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark. 23. Department of Infectious Diseases, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark. 24. Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. 25. Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA. 26. School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 27. École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; Institute of Genetic, Neurobiological, and Social Foundations of Child Development, Tomsk State University, Russian Federation. 28. Département de psychologie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada. 29. École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada. 30. École de psychoéducation, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada. 31. Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 32. Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. 33. Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, Sweden. 34. Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. 35. Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. 36. Obesity Research Unit, Research Programs Unit, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. 37. Healthy Twin Association of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 38. Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan; Healthy Twin Association of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 39. MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. 40. King's College London, MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, UK. 41. Department of Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention, Qingdao Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Qingdao, China. 42. Department of Genetics, Physical Anthropology and Animal Physiology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain. 43. Department of Radiology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary; Hungarian Twin Registry, Budapest, Hungary. 44. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. 45. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea; Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. 46. 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. 47. Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Basic Metabolic Research (Section of Metabolic Genetics), Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Department of Public Health (Section of Epidemiology), Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. 48. Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, Helsinki, Finland. 49. Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: There is evidence that birth size is positively associated with height in later life, but it remains unclear whether this is explained by genetic factors or the intrauterine environment. AIM: To analyze the associations of birth weight, length and ponderal index with height from infancy through adulthood within mono- and dizygotic twin pairs, which provides insights into the role of genetic and environmental individual-specific factors. METHODS: This study is based on the data from 28 twin cohorts in 17 countries. The pooled data included 41,852 complete twin pairs (55% monozygotic and 45% same-sex dizygotic) with information on birth weight and a total of 112,409 paired height measurements at ages ranging from 1 to 69 years. Birth length was available for 19,881 complete twin pairs, with a total of 72,692 paired height measurements. The association between birth size and later height was analyzed at both the individual and within-pair level by linear regression analyses. RESULTS: Within twin pairs, regression coefficients showed that a 1-kg increase in birth weight and a 1-cm increase in birth length were associated with 1.14-4.25 cm and 0.18-0.90 cm taller height, respectively. The magnitude of the associations was generally greater within dizygotic than within monozygotic twin pairs, and this difference between zygosities was more pronounced for birth length. CONCLUSION: Both genetic and individual-specific environmental factors play a role in the association between birth size and later height from infancy to adulthood, with a larger role for genetics in the association with birth length than with birth weight.
BACKGROUND: There is evidence that birth size is positively associated with height in later life, but it remains unclear whether this is explained by genetic factors or the intrauterine environment. AIM: To analyze the associations of birth weight, length and ponderal index with height from infancy through adulthood within mono- and dizygotic twin pairs, which provides insights into the role of genetic and environmental individual-specific factors. METHODS: This study is based on the data from 28 twin cohorts in 17 countries. The pooled data included 41,852 complete twin pairs (55% monozygotic and 45% same-sex dizygotic) with information on birth weight and a total of 112,409 paired height measurements at ages ranging from 1 to 69 years. Birth length was available for 19,881 complete twin pairs, with a total of 72,692 paired height measurements. The association between birth size and later height was analyzed at both the individual and within-pair level by linear regression analyses. RESULTS: Within twin pairs, regression coefficients showed that a 1-kg increase in birth weight and a 1-cm increase in birth length were associated with 1.14-4.25 cm and 0.18-0.90 cm taller height, respectively. The magnitude of the associations was generally greater within dizygotic than within monozygotic twin pairs, and this difference between zygosities was more pronounced for birth length. CONCLUSION: Both genetic and individual-specific environmental factors play a role in the association between birth size and later height from infancy to adulthood, with a larger role for genetics in the association with birth length than with birth weight.
Authors: K Silventoinen; A Jelenkovic; Y Yokoyama; R Sund; M Sugawara; M Tanaka; S Matsumoto; L H Bogl; D L Freitas; J A Maia; J V B Hjelmborg; S Aaltonen; M Piirtola; A Latvala; L Calais-Ferreira; V C Oliveira; P H Ferreira; F Ji; F Ning; Z Pang; J R Ordoñana; J F Sánchez-Romera; L Colodro-Conde; S A Burt; K L Klump; N G Martin; S E Medland; G W Montgomery; C Kandler; T A McAdams; T C Eley; A M Gregory; K J Saudino; L Dubois; M Boivin; M Brendgen; G Dionne; F Vitaro; A D Tarnoki; D L Tarnoki; C M A Haworth; R Plomin; S Y Öncel; F Aliev; E Medda; L Nisticò; V Toccaceli; J M Craig; R Saffery; S H Siribaddana; M Hotopf; A Sumathipala; F Rijsdijk; H-U Jeong; T Spector; M Mangino; G Lachance; M Gatz; D A Butler; W Gao; C Yu; L Li; G Bayasgalan; D Narandalai; K P Harden; E M Tucker-Drob; K Christensen; A Skytthe; K O Kyvik; C A Derom; R F Vlietinck; R J F Loos; W Cozen; A E Hwang; T M Mack; M He; X Ding; J L Silberg; H H Maes; T L Cutler; J L Hopper; P K E Magnusson; N L Pedersen; A K Dahl Aslan; L A Baker; C Tuvblad; M Bjerregaard-Andersen; H Beck-Nielsen; M Sodemann; V Ullemar; C Almqvist; Q Tan; D Zhang; G E Swan; R Krasnow; K L Jang; A Knafo-Noam; D Mankuta; L Abramson; P Lichtenstein; R F Krueger; M McGue; S Pahlen; P Tynelius; F Rasmussen; G E Duncan; D Buchwald; R P Corley; B M Huibregtse; T L Nelson; K E Whitfield; C E Franz; W S Kremen; M J Lyons; S Ooki; I Brandt; T S Nilsen; J R Harris; J Sung; H A Park; J Lee; S J Lee; G Willemsen; M Bartels; C E M van Beijsterveldt; C H Llewellyn; A Fisher; E Rebato; A Busjahn; R Tomizawa; F Inui; M Watanabe; C Honda; N Sakai; Y-M Hur; T I A Sørensen; D I Boomsma; J Kaprio Journal: Twin Res Hum Genet Date: 2019-07-31 Impact factor: 1.587
Authors: Courtney A South; Charles D G Keown-Stoneman; Catherine S Birken; Vasanti S Malik; Stanley H Zlotkin; Jonathon L Maguire Journal: JAMA Netw Open Date: 2022-07-01