High prevalence and low heritability of metabolic syndrome in the Erasmus Rucphen Family (ERF) population

Metabolic syndrome is defined by a summative combination of individual risk factors for diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and heritability of metabolic syndrome and its individual components among the Erasmus Rucphen Family (ERF), comprising 3000 genealogically documented subjects from a Dutch genetic isolate. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the IDF and NCEP ATP III criteria. Variance component analysis was applied to extended family data to test for evidence of heritability. In the ERF, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome ranged from 23 to 37% depending on the definition used, with low HDL-C and high waist circumference (WC) being the main metabolic syndrome predictors. The heritability of metabolic syndrome corrected for sibship effect was 11% based on the IDF definition and 13% based on the NCEP ATP III definition. Heritability of individual metabolic syndrome components ranged from 22% to 43%, with the highest heritability found for HDL-C (43%) and for WC (38%). Therefore, although the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was high, the heritability of metabolic syndrome in the ERF was only moderate, a finding that may also result of metabolic syndrome aetiology, which encompasses both environmental and genetic components. The high heritability of individual components of the metabolic syndrome indicates that the genetic dissection of metabolic syndrome should be approached from its individual components.

Abstract

Keywords:
Blood pressure – HDL-C – IDF definition – NCEP ATP III definition – Plasma glucose – Triglycerides – Waist circumference