Abstract
The cost of human experimentation often severely limits the size of experimental groups in studies of human metabolism. In animal studies workers have found that monozygotic (MZ) twins are efficient experimental subjects, because small, within twin-pair differences allow experiments to be done with fewer animals. This communication presents a method of using uniformity trials (all experimental subjects treated alike) to estimate the efficiency of MZ twins relative to unrelated experimental subjects. Fasting blood lipids were measured in 44 sets of MZ twins. The within twin-pair variation was used to estimate the experimental error for studies using twins, while the between twin-pair variation estimated experimental error for unrelated subjects. A total of 18 blood lipid parameters were measured, and there was evidence that 17 could be studied more efficiently with MZ twins than with unrelated subjects. For example, it was estimated that an experiment requiring 24 individuals to test the effects of two treatments on plasma cholesterol could be done with three sets of MZ twins.
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