Background: Triglyceride/HDL cholesterol ratio (TG/HDL-C) is considered as a risk factor for cardiovascular events. Genetic components were important in controlling the variation in western countries. But the mode of inheritance and family aggregation patterns were still unknown among Asian-Pacific countries. This study, based on families recruited from community and hospital, is aimed to investigate the mode of inheritance, heritability and shared environmental factors in controlling TG/HDL-C.
Results: Two populations, one from community-based families (n = 988, 894 parent-offspring and 453 sibling pairs) and the other from hospital-based families (n = 1313, 76 parent-offspring and 52 sibling pairs) were sampled. The population in hospital-based families had higher mean age values than community-based families (54.7 vs. 34.0). Logarithmic transformed TG/ HDL-C values, after adjusted by age, gender and body mass index, were for genetic analyses. Significant parent-offspring and sibling correlations were also found in both samples. The parent-offspring correlation coefficient was higher in the hospital-based families than in the community-based families. Genetic heritability was higher in community-based families (0.338 +/- 0.114, p = 0.002), but the common shared environmental factor was higher in hospital-based families (0.203 +/- 0.042, p < 0.001). Commingling analyses showed that more than one-component distribution models were the best-fit models to explain the variance in both populations. Complex segregation analysis by regressive models revealed that in both samples the best-fit model of TG/HDL-C was the model of environmental effects plus familial correlation, in which significant parent-offspring and sibling correlations were demonstrated. Models of major gene effects were rejected in both samples.
Conclusion: Variations of TG/HDL-C in the normal ranges were likely to be influenced by multiple factors, including environmental and genetic components. Higher genetic factors were proved in younger community-based families than in older hospital-based families.