title: Re-examining heritability: genetics, life history and plasticity.
abstract: Human life-history traits (growth, maturation, nutritional status) are increasingly associated with risk of chronic degenerative disease. Twin studies suggest high heritability of such traits; however, although sophisticated approaches have identified genetic variation underlying a proportion of this heritability, studies also increasingly demonstrate significant plasticity, and many life-history traits are able to change by one standard deviation (SD) over 3-6 generations. Developments in our understanding of the contributions of genetics and plasticity to human life history are likely to improve understanding of the growing burden of chronic diseases. We argue that a life-history approach to understanding variation in the human phenotype must integrate these two risk components, and highlight the important contribution of plasticity to changes in disease prevalence.
authors.affiliation: Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, University College London Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK. j.wells@ich.ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Jonathan C K
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.forename: Jay T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Stock
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D004777:Environment; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D040941:Heredity / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D040582:Inheritance Patterns; D008954:Models, Biological; D009752:Nutritional Status; D010641:Phenotype; D019655:Quantitative Trait, Heritable; D018433:Twin Studies as Topic