Genetic and environmental contributions to the variance of body height in a sample of first and second degree relatives

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Abstract
Height was measured in a health screening of the population in Nord‐Trøndelag, Norway. Correlations were computed for 24,281 pairs of spouses, 43,613 pairs of parents and offspring, 19,168 pairs of siblings, 1,318 pairs of grandparents and grandchildren, 1,218 cognate avuncular pairs, 849 noncognate avuncular pairs, 175 pairs of same‐sexed twins, and smaller groups of other types of relatives. Fitting of structural equation models showed proportions of additive genetic variance of approximately 0.8 for both sexes and small sex‐specific effects that probably reflect genetic dominance or environmental sibling effects. The correlations between parents and offspring were significantly lower in old than young cohorts, seeming to imply some kind of interaction effect between genes and environment.