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Common Genetic Influences on Age at Pubertal Voice Change and BMI in Male Twins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2020

Yoon-Mi Hur*
Affiliation:
College of General Education, Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea
*
Author for correspondence: Yoon-Mi Hur, Email: ymhur@kookmin.ac.kr

Abstract

The present study aimed to explore secular trends in age at voice change (AVC), estimate heritability of AVC and investigate to what extent common genes influence the association between AVC and body mass index (BMI) in South Korean males. The sample of 955 male twins consisted of 241 pairs and 118 co-twin missing monozygotic (MZ) twins, 82 pairs and 50 co-twin missing dizygotic (DZ) twins and 141 male members of opposite-sex DZ twins who participated in telephone surveys in the South Korean Twin Registry. AVC was asked of twins during the surveys. The mean (SD) age of the sample was 18.92 (2.42) years (range: 16.00–29.25 years). The birth years of the twins were divided into two groups (1988–1993, 1994–2001). Kaplan–Meyer survival analyses were conducted to compute the mean age of AVC in the total sample as well as to test mean differences between the two birth cohorts. Maximum likelihood twin correlations and univariate and bivariate model-fitting analyses were performed. The mean AVC in the total sample was 14.19 (95% CI [14.09, 14.29]) years. The mean AVC significantly declined from 14.38 to 14.02 years from 1988 to 2001, confirming downward trends in AVC in recent years. Heritability for AVC was .59 (95% CI [.50, .67]), which was within the range reported in most Western twin studies. Although the phenotypic correlation between AVC and BMI was modest (r = −.14; 95% CI [−.07, −.21]), it was entirely mediated by common genes, similar to what has been found in females in prior twin studies. In conclusion, the present twin study underscores the importance of genetic influences on pubertal timing and its association with BMI in South Korean males.

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Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Table 1. Mean (95% CIs in square brackets) differences in two birth cohorts (1988–1993 and 1994–2001) in the first- and the second-born twins, and the total sample

Figure 1

Table 2. Results of univariate model-fitting analysis for AVC and BMI

Figure 2

Table 3. Results of bivariate model-fitting analysis for AVC and BMI

Figure 3

Fig. 1. Standardized parameter estimates and their 95% CIs in the best-fitting bivariate model for BMI and AVC. A, additive genetic effects; E, nonshared environmental effects including measurement error. ra, additive genetic correlation. Parameter estimates should be squared to obtain variance attributable to each latent variable. 95% confidence intervals are in square brackets.