The heritable basis of gene-environment interactions in cardiometabolic traits.

Aims/hypothesis: Little is known about the heritable basis of gene-environment interactions in humans. We therefore screened multiple cardiometabolic traits to assess the probability that they are influenced by genotype-environment interactions.

Methods: Fourteen established environmental risk exposures and 11 cardiometabolic traits were analysed in the VIKING study, a cohort of 16,430 Swedish adults from 1682 extended pedigrees with available detailed genealogical, phenotypic and demographic information, using a maximum likelihood variance decomposition method in Sequential Oligogenic Linkage Analysis Routines software.

Gene-Lifestyle Interactions in Complex Diseases: Design and Description of the GLACIER and VIKING Studies.

Most complex diseases have well-established genetic and non-genetic risk factors. In some instances, these risk factors are likely to interact, whereby their joint effects convey a level of risk that is either significantly more or less than the sum of these risks. Characterizing these gene-environment interactions may help elucidate the biology of complex diseases, as well as to guide strategies for their targeted prevention.