title: Genetic and environmental effects on body mass index from infancy to the onset of adulthood: an individual-based pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts participating in the COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Both genetic and environmental factors are known to affect body mass index (BMI), but detailed understanding of how their effects differ during childhood and adolescence is lacking.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We analyzed the genetic and environmental contributions to BMI variation from infancy to early adulthood and the ways they differ by sex and geographic regions representing high (North America and Australia), moderate (Europe), and low levels (East Asia) of obesogenic environments.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data were available for 87,782 complete twin pairs from 0.5 to 19.5 y of age from 45 cohorts. Analyses were based on 383,092 BMI measurements. Variation in BMI was decomposed into genetic and environmental components through genetic structural equation modeling.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The variance of BMI increased from 5 y of age along with increasing mean BMI. The proportion of BMI variation explained by additive genetic factors was lowest at 4 y of age in boys (a(2) = 0.42) and girls (a(2) = 0.41) and then generally increased to 0.75 in both sexes at 19 y of age. This was because of a stronger influence of environmental factors shared by co-twins in midchildhood. After 15 y of age, the effect of shared environment was not observed. The sex-specific expression of genetic factors was seen in infancy but was most prominent at 13 y of age and older. The variance of BMI was highest in North America and Australia and lowest in East Asia, but the relative proportion of genetic variation to total variation remained roughly similar across different regions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Environmental factors shared by co-twins affect BMI in childhood, but little evidence for their contribution was found in late adolescence. Our results suggest that genetic factors play a major role in the variation of BMI in adolescence among populations of different ethnicities exposed to different environmental factors related to obesity.
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authors.affiliation: MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom; Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (Section on Metabolic Genetics) and Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen,Denmark; Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospitals, Copenhagen, The Capital Region, Denmark;
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authors.lastname: Sørensen
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
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authors.affiliation: Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland; and Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, Helsinki, Finland.
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mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001315:Australia; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004777:Environment; D005060:Europe; D005202:Asia, Eastern; D005260:Female; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009656:North America; D009765:Obesity / Q000208:ethnology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics; D012737:Sex Factors; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: BMI; children; genetics; international comparisons; twins