Repercussions of Consanguinity on Metrical Traits At Different Phases of Growth

Introduction: Consanguinity is associated with increase in the likelihood of receiving two copies of deleterious gene from parents, which brings the hidden recessive disorders. This further increases the risk of neonatal and post neonatal mortality. Some of which may also have negative effect on metrical traits of the children, thereby affecting their development and reducing their cognitive abilities.

Aim: To examine the effect of parental consanguinity on various metrical traits like linear, circumferential and weight measurements among the Muslim males.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted amongst the Muslim males living in the different river islands of Barpeta district in Assam. The study consisted 1438 males (587 inbred and 851 non inbred). A total of 936 boys (3-18 years) were measured at an interval of one year. The rest (502 adult men) from 19-60 years were in age cohorts of five-years age interval. They were measured for stature, sitting height, lower extremity length, body weight, waist circumference, abdominal circumference and hip circumference. Inbreeding depression on trait was calculated using average coefficient of inbreeding and % of depression in a trait. Wright’s path coefficient method was used for the calculation of inbreeding coefficient.

Results: The average coefficient of inbreeding was found to be 0.01637931154. A significant increase in the difference of mean values in all the linear, circumferential and weight measurements has been observed at many ages with the increase in the inbreeding coefficient during childhood and adolescence phase of life. But the difference in mean variance in the adult body parameters between the inbred and non inbred was statistically insignificant at almost all ages (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Consanguinity has not affected any of the adult body measurements. A significant positive association between consanguinity and diminution of body measurements found during the growing period needs to be correlated with the other socio-demographic variables because the growing period is always more dependent on environmental variables.