Genetic Analysis of Blood Pressure and Anthropometric Measures Among North Indian Twins

Twin investigation has played a major role in the history of human genetics. The present cross-sectional study was undertaken on 50 pairs of monozygotic and dizygotic (8 monozygotic and 42 dizygotic) aged 7-67 years in Amritsar district in Punjab. Results from twin studies indicate that all the means of height, weight, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, waist circumference, hip circumference, upper arm circumference, pulse pressure and body mass index are higher in dizygotic twins than in monozygotic twins. But the differences are statistically not significant in any trait (P<. 05) whereas, the means for all skin thickness measurements are large in monozygotic twins. It have also been seen that all dizygotic twins were significantly taller and heavier than monozygotic twins. The intra class correlation coefficients among monozygotic twins for all studied traits are highly significant (P<.01). The genetic fraction heritability (h2) was estimated using interclass correlation coefficients and within pair variances for all anthropometric and physiometric