Table 5. Comparison of heritability estimates for traditional lipids and specific lipid classes/species summarising the current work and other published studies.

Study and cohort details	Findings	Reference
Traditional lipids
Present study 75 MZ pairs, 55 DZ pairs 69–93 years	Range h2: 0.404–0.427 HDL-C had substantial C-component 0.27
Qingdao Twin Registry 382 MZ pairs and 139 DZ pairs, mean age 51 ± 7	Total Cholesterol and LDL-C 0.614, 0.655 HDL-C h2 = 0.26, C-component = 0.478	Liu et al., 2018
National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Veteran Twin Study; 235 MZ, 260 DZ pairs 48–63 years	Longitudinal increases in heritability across three time pts Total Cholesterol (from 0.46 to 0.57), LDL-C (from 0.49 to 0.64), and HDL-C (from 0.50 to 0.62) TG: h2 = 0.40	Goode et al., 2007
San Antonio Family Heart Study N = 569, mean age 39.4 years	h2HDL-C = 0.55, h2TG = 0.53	Goode et al., 2007; Mahaney et al., 1995
Lipid Species/Classes
Present study	Range h2: 0–0.59 Range heritable lipids: 0.287–0.59, median: 0.433 Heritable lipids: some Cer, TG, DG. Fewer PE, PC Non-heritable lipids: LPC, SM, PI, CE
Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention n = 1212, mean age 60.8	Range 0.2–84.9%, median h2 = 0.354 Median h2ceramides = 0.48 Median h2DG = 0.38	Darst et al., 2019
San Antonio Family Heart study, n = 1212 mean age 39.52	h2range = 0.09–0.60 Median = 0.37 Heritable: almost all lipids, including Cer, TG, DG Least heritable: LPC, alkyl-PE	Bellis et al., 2014
NUGAT Twin Study 34 MZ, 12 DZ twin pairs 18–70 years, median age 25	Range h2: 0–0.62 (19/152 lipids had h2 > 0.40) Heritable lipids: LPC, PE, SM Non-heritable: Cer	Frahnow et al., 2017; Tabassum et al., 2019
FINRISK n = 2181 25–74 years SNP based heritability	SNP based range h2: 0.10–0.54 Heritable lipids: Cer, LPC, SM, TG Non-heritable: PI	Tabassum et al., 2019
n = 203 plasma samples from 31 families	Cer heritability range: 0.10–0.63	McGurk et al., 2017
n = 999, 196 British families, mean age 45	SNP-based Cer heritability range: 0.18–0.87	McGurk et al., 2019