Health promotion and cardiovascular health in adult monozygotic twins.

Purpose: To describe relationships among cardiovascular health indicators and health-promoting behaviors in adult monozygotic (MZ) twins.

Design: The descriptive, correlational design with a convenience sample of adult twins (77 twin pairs, or N = 154) obtained during a public conference held in the Midwestern United States.

Methods: Bivariate correlational analyses with twins as their own controls and with each twin pair. This double-entry approach allowed for the creation of a symmetrical scatterplot of twin characteristics and accounted for the genuine effects of outliers. Relationships were examined among cardiovascular health indicators (systolic and diastolic blood pressures, body mass indices, serum lipids) and health-promoting behaviors.

Findings: Thirteen intermeasure correlations for cardiovascular indicators were significant, and 74% of the variance in the cardiovascular health indicators was shared within each twin pair, thus indicating evidence of common behavioral and genetic influences.

Conclusions: Both behavioral and genetic factors contributed to cardiovascular health in adult MZ twins who shared close familial and environmental ties. This finding is consistent with previous literature identifying behavioral and genetic effects on the development of cardiovascular disease.