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Determinants of blood pressure in Japanese-American families

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Summary

Blood pressure gave evidence for genetic heritability (0.24 for systolic, 0.19 for diastolic) and for cultural heritability (0.16 for systolic, 0.09 for diastolic in children) in a sample of Japanese-American families. A small but significant fraction of cultural inheritance was due to maternal effects, possibly mediated through dietary habits. There was no convincing evidence for major loci causing hypertension in this population, and the polymorphism proposed by Platt was excluded as a principal cause of hypertension.

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Morton, N.E., Gulbrandsen, C.L., Rao, D.C. et al. Determinants of blood pressure in Japanese-American families. Hum Genet 53, 261–266 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00273508

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