A wide range of heritabilities was observed for each group of traits (Tables 1 and 2). After accounting for age and sex, heritability estimates ranged between 0.138 (for the fraction of basophils among white blood cells) to 0.777 (for the mean hemoglobin level in red blood cells, which is influenced by a common beta-thalassemia allele in Sardinia [8]) for the 34 blood tests; between 0.371 (for waist circumference) and 0.798 (for height) for five anthropometric traits; between 0.089 and 0.449 for 24 measures of cardiovascular structure/function, including values of 0.253, 0.186, 0.226, and 0.186 for the key variables of systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), pulse wave velocity (PWV), and intimal–medial thickness (IMT); and between 0.094 (for tender-mindedness, NEO A6) and 0.328 (for openness to experience, NEO O) for the 35 personality factors and facets. Notable results include substantial heritabilities for several risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as total cholesterol (0.423), HDL (0.486), LDL (0.425), and triglycerides (0.322), and the observation that the five personality factors typically show higher heritability (0.254 on average) than the 30 personality facets (0.177 on average).
