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 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
