The results of recent evaluations of genome wide association (GWA) studies of complex phenotypic traits, including age at disease onset or life span, showed that such traits are typically affected by a large number of "small-effect-low-significance" alleles, which were excluded from further analyses in traditional GWA studies. In this talk we show that the joint influence of such genetic variants on human life span can be substantial and highly statistically significant. The dependence between life span and the number of such genetic variants can be approximated by "genetic-dose life span response" relationship. The results are replicated in independent populations. This new finding encourages revision of current methods of genetic analyses of life history traits.
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Sociology-Psychology 329
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