Heritability of death from coronary heart disease: a 36-year follow-up of 20 966 Swedish twins

The aim of the present study was to evaluate and distinguish between environmental and genetic effects for death from coronary heart disease (CHD) as well as to determine whether the importance of genetic influences is changing with age. A total number of 4007 CHD-deaths (2208 males, and 1799 females) was observed. The probability of dying from CHD given that one's twin partner already has died from CHD decreased with increasing age, particularly amongst males. The heritability was 0.57 (0.45-0.69) amongst male twins, and 0.38 (0.26-0.50) amongst female twins