So how is your Quantile-Specific Heritability then?!

12 March 2020

Had your first coffee of the day yet? Are you a two, three, four or more a day drinker? Do you consume your coffee alone or socially, maybe with co-workers? Were or are your Mum and Dad big coffee drinkers too? It could all be down to your Quantile-Specific Heritability!

With so much concern and media attention around Covid-19 at the moment I was determined only to mention it in passing with this blog and find something pretty obscure to write about.

What makes us consume or enjoy a particular food or drink; is it pre-determined or more influenced by the environment we grow up in? A study of coffee drinkers as part of a wider statistical project running in the USA since 1948 has contributed to work by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that has recently been released.

It seems that oneโ€™s coffee intake is influenced by what is described in the report as the โ€˜positive feedback loopโ€™ between genetics and the environment, which in laymanโ€™s speak I interpret to mean who you are and where you are does make a difference!

Statistician Paul Williams refers to this who and where effect as โ€œquantile-specific heritabilityโ€ describing how environmental factors will influence the way your genetic predisposition develops; which again I interpret to mean if your genes โ€œlikeโ€ something and the people around you like that too then you will like it even more!!!

Boring blog I know, but it beats droning on about Covid-19 as there are millions out there voicing an opinion on that.

Written by: Colin from KSV.

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