CONSANGUINITY AND COMMON ADULT DISEASES IN ISRAELI ARAB COMMUNITIES

Consanguinity has a deleterious effect with regard to congenital malfo rmation and rare autosomal recessive diseases; however, little informa tion exists on its role in multifactorial common adult morbidity. We i nvestigated the effects of consanguinity on the prevalence of common d iseases in adulthood, including diabetes mellitus, myocardial infarcti on, bronchial asthma, and duodenal ulcer. As part of a larger study in vestigating the inbreeding coefficient in the Israeli-Arab community, we distributed questionnaires to parents of 4,100 second-grade student s in 158 randomly chosen schools. Among the 3,772 responders (92%), 34 .8% of the students' fathers and 31% of their mothers were found to be born to consanguineous matings. There was no difference in the preval ence (males, females) between the offspring of consanguineous versus n on-consanguineous matings for diabetes mellitus (consanguinity: 4.3%, 1.5% vs. non-consanguinity: 2.9%, 1.6%) myocardial infarction (2.7%, 0 .03% vs. 2.3%, 0.03%), bronchial asthma (2.4%, 2.0% vs. 3.7%, 2.3%), o r duodenal ulcer (7.0%, 3.0% vs. 7.8%, 2.9%), respectively. The study suggests that even in a population with a high rate of consanguinity, there is no significant increase in the prevalence of these common adu lt diseases. Am. J. Med. Genet. 70:346-348, 1997. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.