RISK-FACTORS FOR ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN TWINS

We performed multivariate genetic analyses of cardiovascular risk fact ors from two sets of data on US and Australian female twins. Similar m odels for body-mass index (BMI), serum low density (LDL) and high dens ity (HDL) lipoproteins, including age as a covariate, were fitted succ essfully to both groups. These suggested that BMI, or genes responsibl e for a significant proportion of the variance of BMI, explained corre lations between lipid subfractions, as well as those between blood pre ssure and lipid subfractions, especially HDL. (C) 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc .