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Type 2 diabetes [T2D] and the metabolic syndrome are far more common and presents at a younger age in people of South Asian origin. The aim of the study was to determine the heritability of common traits associated with diabetes in South Indian families and compare them to those obtained in British white Caucasians. 1094 subjects from 296 families were studied from a community-based cross-sectional study in Chennai, India. Clinical details, anthropometric measures and fasting bloods were taken from all available family members. Heritabilities [h²] were calculated for individual waits using SOLAR v4.0.3. corrected for age, sex and BMI. h² [SE] for waist was 0.50 [0.06], WHR 0.33 [0.06], body fat 0.39 [0.07], BMR 0.57 [0.06], systolic (s)BP 0.30 [0.06], triglycerides (tg) 0.53 [0.06] and fasting glucose (FBG) 0.37 [0.06]. All p values were <0.0001. The h² values using a similar model implemented in SOLAR were generally higher than for a healthy white population in the UK (Freeman et al 2002: WHR 0.15 [0.11], sBP 0.14 [0.07], Tg 0.20 [0.08] and FBG 0.20 [0.08]) whereas they were similar apart from FBG to non diabetic relatives of patients with T2D ascertained for the Diabetes UK Warren2 family collection (Mills et al 2004: WHR 0.22 [0.08], sBP 0.30 [0.1], Tg 0.51 [0.1] and FBG 0.81 [0.09]). These studies suggest that risk variables for diabetes which are strongly influenced by lifestyle have an increased genetic component in south Asians compared healthy white Europeans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]