Table 1 Summary of all previous human studies that include estimates of father–offspring and mother–offspring correlations of blood telomere length

	Father–offspring		Mother–offspring		Mother–father diff.
Population	n	r _f	n	r _m	r _f− r _m	P ^a	Reference
Northern Belgium	81	0.32	122	0.52	−0.20	0.097	¹⁵
Amish in Pennsylvania	164	0.46	168	0.18	0.28	0.004	¹⁶
Northern Sweden	42	0.56	41	0.16	0.41	0.036	¹²
Northern Sweden	98	0.45	129	0.15	0.31	0.012	¹³
Broer et al.
The Netherlands	320	0.29	407	0.34	−0.05	0.459	³
UK	501	0.34	502	0.48	−0.14	0.008	³
The Netherlands	111	0.49	110	0.49	0.00	1.000	³
Australia	312	0.28	369	0.39	−0.11	0.108	³
Combined without Broer et al.^b	385	0.44	460	0.27	0.17	0.004
Combined Broer et al. only^b	1244	0.33	1388	0.42	−0.09	0.007
All combined ^b	1629	0.36	1848	0.38	−0.03	0.363

^aP-value for difference between father—offspring and mother–offspring correlation.
^bFisher’s r to Z-transformation was used to combine weighted r-values. The mother–father difference in correlation across studies showed considerable heterogeneity (Q₇=30.67, P<0.0001, I²=81.5%), so the pooled effects across studies should be interpreted with caution (see text for more discussion).

Quick links

Search