Tonsillitis has a genetic link

Recurrent tonsillitis or inflammation of the tonsils might have a strong genetic link. Researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo found that tonsillitis is known to run in families but the finding that it could be due to genetic factors with no contribution from common environmental factors was surprising. Researchers used the data from 9479 Norwegian twins to investigate the possible genetic and environmental contributions to recurrent tonsillitis. Recurrent tonsillitis was more prevalent among females (14.1 percent) than among males (8.8 percent) and the overall prevalence was 11.7 percent. Of note, the correlations for recurrent tonsillitis were much higher among identical twins (twins that come from the same egg that splits after fertilization and sharing the same genes) than among fraternal twins (where two eggs were fertilized simultaneously). Genetic factors, both additive genetic effects and genetic dominance, explained 62 percent of the variance in recurrent tonsillitis while individual environmental effects explained the remaining 38 percent of the variance. The findings provide evidence of a substantial genetic predisposition for tonsillitis.