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Cambridge University Press, Twin Research and Human Genetics, 5(18), p. 557-570, 2015

DOI: 10.1017/thg.2015.57

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Zygosity Differences in Height and Body Mass Index of Twins From Infancy to Old Age: A Study of the CODATwins Project

Journal article published in 2015 by Aline Jelenkovic, Yoshie Yokoyama, Reijo Sund, Chika Honda, Leonie H. Bogl, Sari Aaltonen, Fuling Ji, Feng Ning, Zengchang Pang, Juan R. Ordoñana, Juan F. Sanchez-Romera, Juan F. Sánchez-Romera, Lucia Colodro-Conde, S. Alexandra Burt, S. Alexandra Burt and other authors.
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This paper is available in a repository.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

A trend toward greater body size in dizygotic (DZ) than in monozygotic (MZ) twins has been suggested by some but not all studies, and this difference may also vary by age. We analyzed zygosity differences in mean values and variances of height and body mass index (BMI) among male and female twins from infancy to old age. Data were derived from an international database of 54 twin cohorts participating in the COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins), and included 842,951 height and BMI measurements from twins aged 1 to 102 years. The results showed that DZ twins were consistently taller than MZ twins, with differences of up to 2.0 cm in childhood and adolescence and up to 0.9 cm in adulthood. Similarly, a greater mean BMI of up to 0.3 kg/m2 in childhood and adolescence and up to 0.2 kg/m2 in adulthood was observed in DZ twins, although the pattern was less consistent. DZ twins presented up to 1.7% greater height and 1.9% greater BMI than MZ twins; these percentage differences were largest in middle and late childhood and decreased with age in both sexes. The variance of height was similar in MZ and DZ twins at most ages. In contrast, the variance of BMI was significantly higher in DZ than in MZ twins, particularly in childhood. In conclusion, DZ twins were generally taller and had greater BMI than MZ twins, but the differences decreased with age in both sexes.