Familial aggregation of carotid intima media thickness is better appreciable in young generational pairs

AIM: Carotid intima media thickness (C-IMT) aggregates at family level. It has been reported that the amount of offspring C-IMT variability explained by parents' C-IMT ranges from 20 to 92%. To assess whether this wide range of association is related to the age of generational pairs studied, we compared the amount of offspring C-IMT variability explained by parents\u2019 C-IMT detected in \u201cyoung generational pairs\u201d (offspring in paediatric age) with that of \u201cold generational pairs\u201d (parent in geriatric age). METHODS: We studied 201 individuals from 67 families, each consisting of a grandchildren, a parent and a grandparent. Each of them had C-IMTmean and C-IMTmax measured. The amount of offspring C-IMT variability explained by C-IMT of parents was expressed in terms of squared correlation coefficients (r2). The r2 of young and old generational pairs were then compared. RESULTS: The mean age (\ub1SD) of grandparents, parents and children was 70\ub18.3, 44\ub19.1 and 14\ub18.7, respectively. The corresponding figures for C-IMTmean was 1.17\ub10.19 mm, 1.11\ub10.35 mm and 1.06\ub10.28 mm, respectively. C-IMT variables of parents correlated with C-IMT of their offspring just in the young generational pairs (C-IMTmean: r2=0.34 p