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Considered Impossible – New Study of 5 Million People Reveals Genetic Links to Height

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The results of the research may help doctors identify patients who are unable to grow to their genetically projected height, which may subsequently facilitate the identification of undiagnosed diseases or conditions that may be preventing them from growing normally or negatively affecting their health.

 

The research was the largest-ever genome-wide association study.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Nature, is the largest genome-wide association study ever conducted, using the <span class=”glossaryLink” aria-describedby=”tt” data-cmtooltip=”

DNA
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a molecule composed of two long strands of nucleotides that coil around each other to form a double helix. It is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms that carries genetic instructions for development, functioning, growth, and reproduction. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”]”>DNA of nearly 5 million individuals from 281 contributing studies. It fills a significant gap in our knowledge of how genetic differences contribute to height differences. Over one million research participants are of non-European heritage (African, East Asian, Hispanic, or South Asian).

The 12,111 variants that cluster around areas of the genome involved with skeletal growth offer a strong genetic predictor of height. For people of European ancestry, the identified variants account for 40% of the variance in height, and for those of non-European ancestry, 10–20%.

 

Adult height is mostly determined by the information encoded in our DNA; children of tall parents are likely to be taller, while children of short parents tend to be shorter, although these estimations aren’t perfect. The development of a small baby into an adult, as well as the role of genetics in this process, has long been a complicated and poorly understood aspect of human biology. The previous largest genome-wide association study on height employed a sample size of up to 700,000 people; the current sample is around seven times larger than earlier studies.

The study, which is being conducted at a scale never before seen, offers new levels of biological detail and understanding of why individuals are tall or short, with heredity being connected to various specific genomic regions. The results demonstrate that regions comprising just over 20% of the genome contain the majority of the gene variants linked to height.

The study’s findings could help doctors identify people who cannot reach their genetically predicted height, which may aid in the diagnosis of hidden diseases or conditions that may be stunting their growth or impacting their health. The research also provides a valuable blueprint on how it could be possible to use genome-wide studies to identify a disease’s biology and subsequently its hereditary components.

 

Greater genomic diversity needed

While this study has a large number of participants from non-European ancestries compared to previous studies, the researchers emphasize the need for more diversity in genomic research.

Most of the genetic data available are from people of European ancestry, so genome-wide studies don’t capture the wide range of ancestral diversity across the globe. Increasing the size of genome-wide studies in non-European ancestry populations is essential to achieve the same saturation level and close the gap in prediction <span class=”glossaryLink” aria-describedby=”tt” data-cmtooltip=”

accuracy
How close the measured value conforms to the correct value.

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”]”>accuracy in different populations.

Dr. Eirini Marouli, a co-first author of the study and Senior Lecturer in Computational Biology at Queen Mary University of London, said: “We have accomplished a feat in studying the DNA of over 5 million people that was broadly considered impossible until recently.”

She continues, “Genomic studies are revolutionary and might hold the key to solving many global health challenges – their potential is tremendously exciting. If we can get a clear picture of a trait such as height at a genomic level, we may then have the model to better diagnose and treat gene-influenced conditions like heart disease or schizophrenia, for example. If we can map specific parts of the genome to certain traits, it opens the door to widespread targeted, personalized treatments further down the line that could benefit people everywhere.”

 

Reference: “A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height” by Loïc Yengo, Sailaja Vedantam, Eirini Marouli, Julia Sidorenko, Eric Bartell, Saori Sakaue, Marielisa Graff, Anders U. Eliasen, Yunxuan Jiang, Sridharan Raghavan, Jenkai Miao, Joshua D. Arias, Sarah E. Graham, Ronen E. Mukamel, Cassandra N. Spracklen, Xianyong Yin, Shyh-Huei Chen, Teresa Ferreira, Heather H. Highland, Yingjie Ji, Tugce Karaderi, Kuang Lin, Kreete Lüll, Deborah E. Malden, Carolina Medina-Gomez, Moara Machado, Amy Moore, Sina Rüeger, Xueling Sim, Scott Vrieze, Tarunveer S. Ahluwalia, Masato Akiyama, Matthew A. Allison, Marcus Alvarez, Mette K. Andersen, Alireza Ani, Vivek Appadurai, Liubov Arbeeva, Seema Bhaskar, Lawrence F. Bielak, Sailalitha Bollepalli, Lori L. Bonnycastle, Jette Bork-Jensen, Jonathan P. Bradfield, Yuki Bradford, Peter S. Braund, Jennifer A. Brody, Kristoffer S. Burgdorf, Brian E. Cade, Hui Cai, Qiuyin Cai, Archie Campbell, Marisa Cañadas-Garre, Eulalia Catamo, Jin-Fang Chai, Xiaoran Chai, Li-Ching Chang, Yi-Cheng Chang, Chien-Hsiun Chen, Alessandra Chesi, Seung Hoan Choi, Ren-Hua Chung, Massimiliano Cocca, Maria Pina Concas, Christian Couture, Gabriel Cuellar-Partida, Rebecca Danning, E. Warwick Daw, Frauke Degenhard, Graciela E. Delgado, Alessandro Delitala, Ayse Demirkan, Xuan Deng, Poornima Devineni, Alexander Dietl, Maria Dimitriou, Latchezar Dimitrov, Rajkumar Dorajoo, Arif B. Ekici, Jorgen E. Engmann, Zammy Fairhurst-Hunter, Aliki-Eleni Farmaki, Jessica D. Faul, Juan-Carlos Fernandez-Lopez, Lukas Forer, Margherita Francescatto, Sandra Freitag-Wolf, Christian Fuchsberger, Tessel E. Galesloot, Yan Gao, Zishan Gao, Frank Geller, Olga Giannakopoulou, Franco Giulianini, Anette P. Gjesing, Anuj Goel, Scott D. Gordon, Mathias Gorski, Jakob Grove, Xiuqing Guo, Stefan Gustafsson, Jeffrey Haessler, Thomas F. Hansen, Aki S. Havulinna, Simon J. Haworth, Jing He, Nancy Heard-Costa, Prashantha Hebbar, George Hindy, Yuk-Lam A. Ho, Edith Hofer, Elizabeth Holliday, Katrin Horn, Whitney E. Hornsby, Jouke-Jan Hottenga, Hongyan Huang, Jie Huang, Alicia Huerta-Chagoya, Jennifer E. Huffman, Yi-Jen Hung, Shaofeng Huo, Mi Yeong Hwang, Hiroyuki Iha, Daisuke D. Ikeda, Masato Isono, Anne U. Jackson, Susanne Jäger, Iris E. Jansen, Ingegerd Johansson, Jost B. Jonas, Anna Jonsson, Torben Jørgensen, Ioanna-Panagiota Kalafati, Masahiro Kanai, Stavroula Kanoni, Line L. Kårhus, Anuradhani Kasturiratne, Tomohiro Katsuya, Takahisa Kawaguchi, Rachel L. Kember, Katherine A. Kentistou, Han-Na Kim, Young Jin Kim, Marcus E. Kleber, Maria J. Knol, Azra Kurbasic, … Michael Boehnke, Panos Deloukas, Anne E. Justice, Cecilia M. Lindgren, Ruth J. F. Loos, Karen L. Mohlke, Kari E. North, Kari Stefansson, Robin G. Walters, Thomas W. Winkler, Kristin L. Young, Po-Ru Loh, Jian Yang, Tõnu Esko, Themistocles L. Assimes, Adam Auton, Goncalo R. Abecasis, Cristen J. Willer, Adam E. Locke, Sonja I. Berndt, Guillaume Lettre, Timothy M. Frayling, Yukinori Okada, Andrew R. Wood, Peter M. Visscher, and Joel N. Hirschhorn, 12 October 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05275-y

 

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Some Ontario docs now offering RSV shot to infants with Quebec rollout set for Nov.

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14 hours ago

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October 21, 2024

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Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.

The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.

Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.

Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.

Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.

The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.

-With files from Nicole Ireland

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Polio is rising in Pakistan ahead of a new vaccination campaign

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16 hours ago

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October 21, 2024

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.

Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.

The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.

Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.

The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.

The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.

Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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White House says health insurance needs to fully cover condoms, other over-the-counter birth control

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October 21, 2024

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.

Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.

The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.

“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”

The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”

Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.

If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.

Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.

The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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