Abstract

Objective To estimate heritability of metabolic syndrome traits among healthy younger adults in a human population in China, and examine potential sex differences in heritability and parental effect on metabolic syndrome traits.

Methods Using offspring–parent regression, we estimated heritability (h²) of metabolic syndrome traits based on 452 child–parent triads identified from a population based random survey on metabolic syndrome among people over 15 years of age in Guangzhou, China.

Results Body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and waist circumference (waist-C) were more heritable (h², 0.42–0.545), whereas systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and triglycerides (TG) were less heritable (h², 0.14–0.28). Sons had pronounced increases in heritability for all traits over daughters, particularly for cholesterol (0.653 vs 0.356), FPG (0.602 vs 0.313), LDL-C (0.521 vs 0.329), and TG (0.395 vs 0.187). Offspring–mother seemed to have a higher heritability in every trait except FPG (0.67 vs 0.794) than offspring–father, most notably for DBP (0.308 vs 0.122), SBP (0.288 vs 0.146), TG (0.387 vs 0.239) and waist-C (0.581 vs 0.354).

Conclusion We estimated the heritability of metabolic syndrome traits in a human population based on a unique population based offspring–parent sample from China, and found important evidence that the maternal and paternal effects on these traits are different and the sex difference in heritability is pronounced.