title: Familial aggregation of metabolic syndrome indicators in Portuguese families.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Family studies are well suited to investigate the genetic architecture underlying the metabolic syndrome (MetS). The purposes of this paper were (i) to estimate heritabilities for each of the MetS indicators, and (ii) to test the significance of familial intratrait and cross-trait correlations in MetS markers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This study included 1,363 individuals from 515 Portuguese families in which five MetS components, including waist circumference (WC), blood pressure (BP), HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), and glucose (GLU), were measured. Intratrait and cross-trait familial correlations of these five components were estimated using Generalized Estimating Equations. Each MetS component was significantly heritable (h (2) ranged from 0.12 to 0.60) and exhibited strong familial resemblance with correlations between biological relatives of similar magnitude to those observed between spouses. With respect to cross-trait correlations, familial resemblance was very weak except for the HDL-TG pair.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present findings confirm the idea of familial aggregation in MetS traits. Spousal correlations were, in general, of the same magnitude as the biological relatives' correlations suggesting that most of the phenotypic variance in MetS traits could be explained by shared environment.
authors.affiliation: CIFI D, Faculty of Sports, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Plácido Costa 91, 4200-450 Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Katzmarzyk
authors.forename: D-A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Trégouet
authors.forename: T N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Gomes
authors.forename: F K
authors.initials: FK
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Maia
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001786:Blood Glucose; D001794:Blood Pressure; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D008076:Cholesterol, HDL / Q000097:blood*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D024821:Metabolic Syndrome / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D008875:Middle Aged; D010641:Phenotype; D011174:Portugal; D014280:Triglycerides / Q000097:blood*; D055105:Waist Circumference
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose; D008076:Cholesterol, HDL; D014280:Triglycerides