Mother-daughter genetic relationship in central obesity

Abstract

Central obesity is an important predictor of all-cause mortality. Children of obese parents bear a greater risk to develop obesity themselves. ObjectiveTo find possible correlations in central obesity and other cardio-metabolic parameters between mother and daughter. Subjects and methodsThe current study measured anthropometric, laboratory, radiologic and genetic data for 120 centrally obese mothers and their 200 daughters aged from 12 to 18 years old. ResultsTwenty-two percent of the daughters was overweight, 15.5% obese and 30% had central obesity. Genotype E3/E4 of apolipoprotein E was the most frequent genotype in mothers group (38.3%) and daughters with visceral obesity (46.7%) while E3/E3 was the most frequent genotype in daughters group without visceral obesity (42.9%). In both mothers and daughters, disturbed lipid profile was found in those with E3 allele, while increased BMI and weight were found among those with alleles E2 and E4 respectively. Daughters genotype E3/E4 had the highest significant values of most of the studied anthropometric measurements and lipid profile, while mother's genotype E4/E4 had the highest significant values of most of the studied anthropometric measurements and insulin. ConclusionA key role could be played by the mother in the primary prevention of central obesity due to the consistent association of central obesity indices between mothers and daughters.