Effects of household sharing on high density lipoprotein and its subfractions

Household effects accounted for significant proportions of the observed variance of high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C) and subfractions HDL 2 and HDL 3 . It was found that 19.3% of HDL‐C variance could be attributed to a juvenile sib effect (under age 18); 17.4% of HDL 2 variance could be attributed to a sib effect (of any age); and 22.1% and 32.6% of the HDL 3 variance could be attributed to a parent‐offspring effect and a sib effect (of any age), respectively. In addition, additive genetic effects accounted for 56.5%, 37.3%, and 28.3% of the variances of HDL‐C, HDL 2 , and HDL 3 , respectively. These are maximum likelihood estimates obtained using a variance components model on 2,149 HDL‐C levels measured on members of 54 Utah pedigrees, and 337 HDL 2 and HDL 3 levels measured on a subset of 14 pedigrees.