Nature has released the largest genome-wide association study to date, revealing the relationship between genes and height

The study, published Oct.
12 in the journal Nature, is the largest genome-wide association study to date, using DNA
from more than 5 million people from 281 contributing studies.
It fills a huge gap
in our understanding of how genetic differences contribute to height differences.
More than 1 million study participants were non-European—African, East Asian, Hispanic, or South Asian.

These 12,111 variants are concentrated in the part of the genome associated with bone growth, providing a strong genetic predictor
of height.
The variants found explain the change in height in 40% of people of European ancestry, and about 10-20% of people of non-European ancestry
.

Adult height is largely determined by the information encoded in our DNA — children whose parents grow taller tend to be taller, and children whose parents grow shorter are shorter, but these estimates are not perfect
.
The process of growing from baby to adult, and the role of genes in it, has always been a complex and little-known field
in human biology.
Previously, the largest genome-wide associated height study used up to 700,000 individuals, and the current sample size is about 7 times
that of previous studies.

This unprecedented study provides new details and biological insights into why people are tall or short, suggesting that heritability is associated with
a variety of specific genomic regions.
The findings suggest that height-related genetic variants are concentrated in a little over 20 percent of the genome
.

The study's findings could help doctors identify people who can't reach the height predicted by genes, helping to diagnose hidden diseases or conditions
that could hinder their growth or affect their health.
The study also provides a valuable blueprint for how genome-wide studies can be used to determine the biology of a disease and, in turn, its genetic component
.

More genomic diversity is needed

Although the study's participants were of large numbers from non-European ancestry compared to previous studies, the researchers stressed that genomic studies require more diversity
.

Most of the available genetic data comes from people of European ancestry, so genome-wide studies cannot capture ancestral diversity
on a global scale.
Increasing the scale of genome-wide studies in non-European ancestry populations is critical
to achieving the same saturation levels and closing the gap in prediction accuracy between different populations.

Study co-first author Dr Eirini Marouli, Senior Lecturer in Computational Biology at Queen Mary University of London, said:

"We've made great achievements in studying the DNA of more than 5 million people that were generally considered impossible
not long ago.

Genomic research is revolutionary, which could be the key to solving many global health challenges, and its potential is very exciting
.
If we can have a clear understanding of traits like height at the genomic level, then we have a model that can better diagnose and treat genetically influenced diseases
like heart disease or schizophrenia.

"If we can map specific parts of the genome to certain traits, it opens the door to broad, targeted, personalized treatments in the future, which could potentially benefit
people around the world.
"

In addition to Eirini Marouli, co-first authors of the study include Loic Yengo of the University of Queensland and Sailaja Vedantam
of Boston Children's Hospital.
Co-senior authors are Yukinori Okada of Osaka University, Andrew R.
Wood of the University of Exeter, Peter M.
Visscher of the University of Queensland and Joel N.
Hirschhorn
of Boston Children's Hospital.