Many believe that romance arises … by chance, without looking for it. However, the search for our better half seems to be somewhat more predictable than this statement. According to new research published in the journal Genome Biology , the genes that control height also influence our mate choice, and provide a clue to why people tend to have partners of similar heights.
The research, carried out by scientists at the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), focused on a sample of more than 13,000 heterosexual couples in order to determine how much of the attraction to a person of similar height could be explained by the genetic makeup of a woman. person.
Taking into account that height is a quantitative trait and that it is determined by the interaction of several genetic and environmental factors, the researchers discovered a strong correlation between a person’s height and their preference for a partner with similar height as well as a similar phenotype .
“Our genes drive our attraction to people of similar height to ours [that is, tall people mate with tall people]. We have observed that 89% of the genetic variation affecting individual height preferences is shared , which indicates that there is an innate selection by pairs of the same height ”, says Albert Tenesa, leader of the study. Genes can be used to predict the height of the couple, with an accuracy of 13%.
The selection of a mate driven by height has important social and biological implications in humans: “ selective mating influences the way in which DNA variations are arranged in the genome, which could have other important implications in other human traits, among which are included the susceptibility to suffer certain diseases ”, point out the authors of the study.
