INBREEDING EFFECT ON MORBIDITY .4. FURTHER DATA IN BRAZILIAN POPULATIONS

The analysis of the data on 5677 children of 1063 couples from a fourth sample of consanguineous and nonconsanguineous marriages among whites and nonwhites living in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil led to the following estimates: B (number of abnormal equivalents per gamete) around 0.5; A (morbidity in the non-inbred subsamples) 2-3 percent; B/A 13, 15, and 27 (this suggests that the morbidity disclosed by inbreeding may predominantly represent a mutational load); RR (relative risk) about 2 (this means that among the children of consanguineous marriages there is about double the frequency of abnormalities than in those with nonconsanguineous marriages); AR (attributable risk) for the whole sample about 7% (5% for nonwhites and 15% for whites). These last values show the amount that the frequency of abnormalities would decrease in the population if the risk factor (consanguineous marriages) would be eliminated. AR is higher in whites because the frequency of the risk factor is higher among whites.