Genetic epidemiological approaches in the study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
The importance of genetic factors for the susceptibility to disease has been widely recognized in the last years. Genes have been identified for monogenic diseases and the challenge lying ahead is the identification of genetic components of importance and the environments in which they are expressed for complex diseases, that is, multiple genetic factors act and interact with each other or environmental factors to add to the complexity. This paper gives a brief overview of some genetic epidemiological approaches, concepts and recent methodological developments related to the study of risk factors for cardiovascular disease in twin and family studies.
Iliadou
Anastasia
A
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Anastasia.iliadou@mep.ki.se
Snieder
Harold
H
D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D008040:Genetic Linkage; D006801:Humans; D040641:Quantitative Trait Loci; D012307:Risk Factors; D018433:Twin Studies as Topic; D006113:United Kingdom