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A commingling analysis of the distribution of systolic and diastolic blood pressure was performed on measurements from 9,226 individuals living in Tecumseh, Michigan during 1962-1965. Even after correcting for skewness in the distributions, multiple normal distributions fit the data significantly better than a single normal one, suggesting some level of commingling. The exact nature of the components differed depending on the phenotype, and the number of components entertained, suggesting a possibly complex etiology, but with some definite qualitative effects. Segregation analysis under the mixed model is needed to address the nature of blood pressure in this community more definitively.
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Province et al. (1990) studied this question.
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