Abstract
The serum cholesterol of 1431 inhabitants over 10 years old in the general population was estimated by the method of Autoanalyzer. The correlation coefficients of the serum total cholesterol between parent and child and between siblings were obtained from other samples which completely excluded consanguinity. The genetic study of 41 pedigrees of familial hypercholesterolemia with xanthoma which described the cholesterol value of parent and child in Japan and other countries was done, and the following results were obtained. 1) Cholesterol is a quantitative character, there-fore it will be controlled genetically by polygene. 2) It was presumed that the mode of inheritance of Type 11 hypercholesterolemia (with or without xanthoma) was also controlled by polygene. 3) The correlation coefficients of cholesterol between parent and child and between siblings were found to be 0.26004, 0.27998, respectively. 4) The heritability of cholesterol was found to be 0.5995.
