Similar age-related changes in running performance and growth in adolescent monozygotic twins

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the similarities in the pattern of age-related change in the running performance and physical growth in adolescent monozygotic (MZ) twins. The total sample was 70 boys and 100 girls, including 14 pairs of male and 25 pairs of female MZ twins. Performance of the 50 m dash and endurance run (1,500 m for boys and 1,000 m for girls), and stature and body mass were measured longitudinally at yearly intervals from 12 to 17 years of age. The within-pair resemblance was compared between MZ twin pairs (MZ) and control pairs (CP), which were selected from the other subjects matched with each member of MZ for the initial values. The within-pair similarity in performance and growth curves was quantified by an average Euclidean distance coefficient (d(jk)) and a coefficient of shape differences (z(jk)) and a graphical analysis on the d(jk)-z(jk) coordinate. The time relationship between two curves was assessed by the arrangement of the sign of within-pair differences (number of runs, NR). Within-pair differences of measured value at the first and the last measurements were also examined. MZ generally showed smaller d(jk) and z(jk), clustering around the origin on the d(jk)-z(jk) coordinate. Frequency of observation of NR = 1, which means one member of a pair had consistently larger values than the other, tended to be lower in MZ in performance items. Within-pair differences in the last measurements were generally greater in CP. It was concluded that MZ twins have meaningful similarities in the pattern of age-related changes in running performances and physical growth during adolescence. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12:623-632, 2000. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Genetic and Environmental Effects on Physical Fitness and Motor Performance

“…Mizuno's results (1956) showed that that correlation was 0.98 for MZM and was 0.61 for MZF, whereas the results of Suetoshi and Minobe (1958) show 0.60 for MZ and 0.96 for DZ. The results of the correlation analysis by Watanabe et al (2000) also showed 0.61 for MZM and 0.99 for MZF. In a study by Watanabe et al, whose research objective was slightly different than from that of this study, there was a genetic effect in age-related changes for height, body weight and distance run, however, there was no genetic effect reported in age-related changes for the 50 meter run.…”

Genetic variance in age‐related changes in running performance and growth during adolescence: A longitudinal twin study

“…Longitudinal, multi-point measurements are needed. Although many studies examining the patterns of growth using stature and body mass show a significant contribution of genotype (Fischbein, 1977;Hauspie et al, 1982;Sharma, 1983;Bergman and Goracy, 1984;Byard et al, 1993;Hauspie et al, 1994), there has been no genetic study, to our knowledge, on the development in physical performance on the longitudinal basis, except for our previous study in which within-pair resemblance in the age-related changes in running performance were compared between monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs and genetically unrelated pairs (Watanabe et al, 2000). Comparison between MZ and dizygotic (DZ) twins would be stronger in detecting a genetic effect.…”

“…Therefore, the primary goal of the present study was to assess the genetic effect on the age-related changes in running performance during adolescence by comparing within-pair similarity of MZ twins with that of DZ twins. Different from our previous study (Watanabe et al, 2000), in the present study a principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to a longitudinal database of running performance and body size measures. PCA is a technique to reduce multivariate observations into fewer compounded variables called "principal components," and an effective application of PCA to longitudinal data of physical performance during adolescence to capture the developmental patterns of individuals was first conducted by Lefevre et al (1989).…”