Objective: To study the genetic determination of fast plasma glucose (FPG) and correlation with its potential correlated traits, anthropometric measures and blood pressure.
Methods: Two hundred and eighteen Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) pedigrees composed of 1383 Chinese Han individuals residing in the East and South-East China were analyzed. Univariate variance decomposition analyses were used to estimate the narrow-sense heritability (h(2)) of FPG, anthropometric indices and blood pressure, and bivariate quantitative genetic analyses were used to estimate the genetic and environmental correlations between FPG and anthropometric measures or blood pressure.
Results: We found that FPG, blood pressure and all anthropometric indices except for waist to hip ratio were under significant genetic determination, and the h(2) was from 0.28 to 0.43. We did not find significant genetic and environmental correlation between FPG and anthropometric indices and blood pressure.
Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that T2DM, obesity and hypertension were controlled by some genetic factors, and FPG shares little common genetic and environmental factors with obesity-related anthropometric indices and blood pressure in our Chinese sample population.