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Studies of Twins and Adoptees in Coronary Heart Disease

  • Chapter
Genetic factors in coronary heart disease

Part of the book series: Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine ((DICM,volume 156))

Abstract

Since the time of Galton, twins have been studied as a means of evaluating genetic influences on different diseases. Several models have been suggested for testing specific hypotheses of genetic influences. Since monozygotic twins share all their genes and dizygotic twins on average only 50%, a significantly higher concordance for coronary heart disease among monozygotic compared with dizygotic pairs suggests a genetic component. The two members of a dizygotic pair do not necessarily share their environment to the same extent as the two members of a monozygotic pair. Comparisons of concordance rates without adjustments for intra-pair differences in environmental factors may therefore tend to overestimate the impact of genetic influences. Another problem in genetic analyses using twins could be a biased selection of pairs with over-representation of pairs with the trait under investigation. This is, however, largely overcome by the use of series of pairs derived from twin registries compiled on a population basis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cardiovascular, Medicine Karolinska Hospital, Box 60500, S-104 01, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ulf de Faire & Nancy Pedersen

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  1. Ulf de Faire
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  2. Nancy Pedersen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sackler Medical Faculty, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the Neufeld Cardiac Research Institute, Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, Israel

    Uri Goldbourt (Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Head) (Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Head)

  2. Division of Epidemiology, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ulf de Faire (Professor) (Professor)

  3. Institute of Medical Genetics, Department of Medical Genetics, Ullevål University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

    KÃ¥re Berg (Professor of Medicine, Chairman, Director and Physician-in-Chief) (Professor of Medicine, Chairman, Director and Physician-in-Chief)

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de Faire, U., Pedersen, N. (1994). Studies of Twins and Adoptees in Coronary Heart Disease. In: Goldbourt, U., de Faire, U., Berg, K. (eds) Genetic factors in coronary heart disease. Developments in Cardiovascular Medicine, vol 156. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1130-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1130-0_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-4494-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-1130-0

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