HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text Free Full Text (PDF) Free All Versions of this Article: 99/4/1317    most recent 00021.2005v1 Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Peeters, M. W. Articles by Vlietinck, R. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Peeters, M. W. Articles by Vlietinck, R.

Genetic and environmental determination of tracking in static strength during adolescence

¹Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; ²Department of Human Genetics, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia; ³Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Human Genomics Laboratory, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; ⁴Centre for Human Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; and ⁵Department of Population Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Submitted 6 January 2005 ; accepted in final form 31 May 2005

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the observed phenotypic stability in static strength during adolescence, as measured by interage correlations in arm pull, is mainly caused by genetic and/or environmental factors. Subjects were from the Leuven Longitudinal Twin Study (n = 105 pairs, equally divided over 5 zygosity groups). Arm-pull data were aligned on age at peak height velocity to attenuate the temporal fluctuations in interage correlations caused by differences in timing of the adolescent growth spurt. Developmental genetic models were fitted using structural equation modeling. After the data were aligned on age at peak height velocity, the annual interage correlations conformed to a quasi-simplex structure over a 4-yr interval. The best-fitting models included additive genetic and unique environmental sources of variation. Additive genetic factors that already explained a significant amount of variation at previous measurement occasions explained 44.3 and 22.5% of the total variation at the last measurement occasion in boys and girls, respectively. Corresponding values for unique environmental sources of variance are 31.2 and 44.5%, respectively. In conclusion, the observed stability of static strength during adolescence is caused by both stable genetic influences and stable unique environmental influences in boys and girls. Additive genetic factors seem to be the most important source of stability in boys, whereas unique environmental factors appear to be more predominant in girls.

twins; path analysis; simplex models; stability; growth

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Teran-Garcia, T. Rankinen, and C. Bouchard Genes, exercise, growth, and the sedentary, obese child J Appl Physiol, September 1, 2008; 105(3): 988 - 1001. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G Beunen and M Thomis Gene driven power athletes? Genetic variation in muscular strength and power. Br. J. Sports Med., October 1, 2006; 40(10): 822 - 823. [Full Text] [PDF]