Genetic and environmental influences on human height from infancy through adulthood at different levels of parental education.

ABSTRACT: Genetic factors explain a major proportion of human height variation, but differences in mean stature have also been found between socio-economic categories suggesting a possible effect of environment. By utilizing a classical twin design which allows decomposing the variation of height into genetic and environmental components, we tested the hypothesis that environmental variation in height is greater in offspring of lower educated parents. Twin data from 29 cohorts including 65,978 complete twin pairs with information on height at ages 1 to 69 years and on parental education were pooled allowing the analyses at different ages and in three geographic-cultural regions (Europe, North America and Australia, and East Asia). Parental education mostly showed a positive association with offsprin

SUBMITTER: Jelenkovic A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7224277 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature