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(Circulation. 2006;113:1136-1139.)
© 2006 American Heart Association, Inc.

Contemporary Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine

Role of Genetic Analyses in Cardiology

Part II: Heritability Estimation for Gene Searching in Multifactorial Diseases

Kristel M. van Asselt, MD, PhD; Helen S. Kok, MD, PhD; Yvonne T. van der Schouw, PhD; Petra H.M. Peeters, MD, PhD; Peter L. Pearson, PhD; Diederick E. Grobbee, MD, PhD

From the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care (K.M.v.A., H.S.K., Y.T.v.d.S., P.H.M.P., D.E.G.), Department of Reproductive Medicine (K.M.v.A., H.S.K.), and Department of Medical Genetics (K.M.v.A., H.S.K., P.L.P.), University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Correspondence to Yvonne T. van der Schouw, PhD, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, HPnr Str 6.131, PO Box 85060, 3508 BA Utrecht, Netherlands.

Key Words: cardiology • genes • genetics

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 

"When a variation is of the slightest use to a being, we cannot tell how much of it to attribute to the accumulative action of natural selection, and how much to the conditions of life."

— Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Chapter 5: Laws of Variation, 1859

Genetic testing is a growing discipline in clinical practice, and it is being used to make treatment decisions and to counsel patients. Before genetic testing can be done, reliable information needs to be available on which genes are involved in a disease. Research into genetic determinants of disease often is based on articles reporting the magnitude of the heritability of disease. Here, we address limitations in the use of heritability as a point of departure, such as a basis for power calculations, for genetic studies.

	What Is Heritability?

 
Familial aggregation of diseases generally is taken as evidence for a role of genetic factors in the origin of a disorder or trait. A commonly used measure to quantify the extent to which this familial aggregation of diseases is due to genetic factors is the heritability. Heritability estimates were first used by plant and animal breeders to predict the effectiveness of their selection of a desired phenotype such as an increase in milk production or resistance to yeast infections. In human studies, heritability has the intuitive appeal of quantifying genetic effects without necessarily knowing the mode of inheritance of a trait. Heritability is frequently estimated for complex diseases or traits such as diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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