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- Silventoinen, K., et al.
(författare)
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Differences in genetic and environmental variation in adult BMI by sex, age, time period, and region : An individual-based pooled analysis of 40 twin cohorts
- 2017
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Ingår i: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. - : Oxford University Press. - 0002-9165 .- 1938-3207. ; 106:2, s. 457-466
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Genes and the environment contribute to variation in adult body mass index [BMI (in kg/m2)], but factors modifying these variance components are poorly understood.Objective: We analyzed genetic and environmental variation in BMI between men and women from young adulthood to old age from the 1940s to the 2000s and between cultural-geographic regions representing high (North America and Australia), moderate (Europe), and low (East Asia) prevalence of obesity.Design: We used genetic structural equation modeling to analyze BMI in twins ≥20 y of age from 40 cohorts representing 20 countries (140,379 complete twin pairs).Results: The heritability of BMI decreased from 0.77 (95% CI: 0.77, 0.78) and 0.75 (95% CI: 0.74, 0.75) in men and women 20-29 y of age to 0.57 (95% CI: 0.54, 0.60) and 0.59 (95% CI: 0.53, 0.65) in men 70-79 y of age and women 80 y of age, respectively. The relative influence of unique environmental factors correspondingly increased. Differences in the sets of genes affecting BMI in men and women increased from 20-29 to 60-69 y of age. Mean BMI and variances in BMI increased from the 1940s to the 2000s and were greatest in North America and Australia, followed by Europe and East Asia. However, heritability estimates were largely similar over measurement years and between regions. There was no evidence of environmental factors shared by co-twins affecting BMI.Conclusions: The heritability of BMI decreased and differences in the sets of genes affecting BMI in men and women increased from young adulthood to old age. The heritability of BMI was largely similar between cultural-geographic regions and measurement years, despite large differences in mean BMI and variances in BMI. Our results show a strong influence of genetic factors on BMI, especially in early adulthood, regardless of the obesity level in the population.
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| 2. |
- Silventoinen, Karri, et al.
(författare)
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Education in twins and their parents across birth cohorts over 100 years : an individual-level pooled analysis of 42 twin cohorts
- 2017
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Ingår i: Twin Research and Human Genetics. - Stockholm : Karolinska Institutet, Dept of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. - 1832-4274 .- 1839-2628.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Whether monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins differ from each other in a variety of phenotypes is important for genetic twin modeling and for inferences made from twin studies in general. We analyzed whether there were differences in individual, maternal and paternal education between MZ and DZ twins in a large pooled dataset. Information was gathered on individual education for 218,362 adult twins from 27 twin cohorts (53% females; 39% MZ twins), and on maternal and paternal education for 147,315 and 143,056 twins respectively, from 28 twin cohorts (52% females; 38% MZ twins). Together, we had information on individual or parental education from 42 twin cohorts representing 19 countries. The original education classifications were transformed to education years and analyzed using linear regression models. Overall, MZ males had 0.26 (95% CI [0.21, 0.31]) years and MZ females 0.17 (95% CI [0.12, 0.21]) years longer education than DZ twins. The zygosity difference became smaller in more recent birth cohorts for both males and females. Parental education was somewhat longer for fathers of DZ twins in cohorts born in 1990-1999 (0.16 years, 95% CI [0.08, 0.25]) and 2000 or later (0.11 years, 95% CI [0.00, 0.22]), compared with fathers of MZ twins. The results show that the years of both individual and parental education are largely similar in MZ and DZ twins. We suggest that the socio-economic differences between MZ and DZ twins are so small that inferences based upon genetic modeling of twin data are not affected.
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| 3. |
- Brusaferri, L., et al.
(författare)
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The pandemic brain: Neuroinflammation in non-infected individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2022
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Ingår i: Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. - : Elsevier BV. - 0889-1591. ; 102, s. 89-97
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While COVID-19 research has seen an explosion in the literature, the impact of pandemic-related societal and lifestyle disruptions on brain health among the uninfected remains underexplored. However, a global increase in the prevalence of fatigue, brain fog, depression and other “sickness behavior”-like symptoms implicates a possible dysregulation in neuroimmune mechanisms even among those never infected by the virus. We compared fifty-seven ‘Pre-Pandemic’ and fifteen ‘Pandemic’ datasets from individuals originally enrolled as control subjects for various completed, or ongoing, research studies available in our records, with a confirmed negative test for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. We used a combination of multimodal molecular brain imaging (simultaneous positron emission tomography / magnetic resonance spectroscopy), behavioral measurements, imaging transcriptomics and serum testing to uncover links between pandemic-related stressors and neuroinflammation. Healthy individuals examined after the enforcement of 2020 lockdown/stay-at-home measures demonstrated elevated brain levels of two independent neuroinflammatory markers (the 18 kDa translocator protein, TSPO, and myoinositol) compared to pre-lockdown subjects. The serum levels of two inflammatory markers (interleukin-16 and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1) were also elevated, although these effects did not reach statistical significance after correcting for multiple comparisons. Subjects endorsing higher symptom burden showed higher TSPO signal in the hippocampus (mood alteration, mental fatigue), intraparietal sulcus and precuneus (physical fatigue), compared to those reporting little/no symptoms. Post-lockdown TSPO signal changes were spatially aligned with the constitutive expression of several genes involved in immune/neuroimmune functions. This work implicates neuroimmune activation as a possible mechanism underlying the non-virally-mediated symptoms experienced by many during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future studies will be needed to corroborate and further interpret these preliminary findings. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.
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| 4. |
- Jelenkovic, A, et al.
(författare)
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Genetic and environmental influences on human height from infancy through adulthood at different levels of parental education
- 2020
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Ingår i: Scientific reports. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1, s. 7974-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genetic factors explain a major proportion of human height variation, but differences in mean stature have also been found between socio-economic categories suggesting a possible effect of environment. By utilizing a classical twin design which allows decomposing the variation of height into genetic and environmental components, we tested the hypothesis that environmental variation in height is greater in offspring of lower educated parents. Twin data from 29 cohorts including 65,978 complete twin pairs with information on height at ages 1 to 69 years and on parental education were pooled allowing the analyses at different ages and in three geographic-cultural regions (Europe, North America and Australia, and East Asia). Parental education mostly showed a positive association with offspring height, with significant associations in mid-childhood and from adolescence onwards. In variance decomposition modeling, the genetic and environmental variance components of height did not show a consistent relation to parental education. A random-effects meta-regression analysis of the aggregate-level data showed a trend towards greater shared environmental variation of height in low parental education families. In conclusion, in our very large dataset from twin cohorts around the globe, these results provide only weak evidence for the study hypothesis.
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| 6. |
- Giangrande, E. J., et al.
(författare)
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Genetically informed, multilevel analysis of the Flynn Effect across four decades and three WISC versions
- 2022
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Ingår i: Child Development. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0009-3920 .- 1467-8624. ; 93:1, s. e47-e58
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study investigated the systematic rise in cognitive ability scores over generations, known as the Flynn Effect, across middle childhood and early adolescence (7–15 years; 291 monozygotic pairs, 298 dizygotic pairs; 89% White). Leveraging the unique structure of the Louisville Twin Study (longitudinal data collected continuously from 1957 to 1999 using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children [WISC], WISC–R, and WISC–III ed.), multilevel analyses revealed between-subjects Flynn Effects—as both decrease in mean scores upon test re-standardization and increase in mean scores across cohorts—as well as within-child Flynn Effects on cognitive growth across age. Overall gains equaled approximately three IQ points per decade. Novel genetically informed analyses suggested that individual sensitivity to the Flynn Effect was moderated by an interplay of genetic and environmental factors.
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