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- Ericsson, Malin, et al.
(författare)
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Educational Influences on Late-Life Health : Genetic Propensity and Attained Education
- 2024
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 79:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: The educational gradient in late-life health is well established. Despite this, there are still ambiguities concerning the role of underlying confounding by genetic influences and gene-environment (GE) interplay. Here, we investigate the role of educational factors (attained and genetic propensities) on health and mortality in late life using genetic propensity for educational attainment (as measured by a genome-wide polygenic score, PGSEdu) and attained education.Methods: By utilizing genetically informative twin data from the Swedish Twin Registry (n = 14,570), we investigated influences of the educational measures, familial confounding as well as the possible presence of passive GE correlation on both objective and subjective indicators of late-life health, that is, the Frailty Index, Multimorbidity, Self-rated health, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality.Results: Using between-within models to adjust for shared familial factors, we found that the relationship between educational level and health and mortality later in life persisted despite controlling for familial confounding. PGSEdu and attained education both uniquely predicted late-life health and mortality, even when mutually adjusted. Between-within models of PGSEdu on the health outcomes in dizygotic twins showed weak evidence for passive GE correlation (prGE) in the education-health relationship.Discussion: Both genetic propensity to education and attained education are (partly) independently associated with health in late life. These results lend further support for a causal education-health relationship but also raise the importance of genetic contributions and GE interplay.
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- Finkel, Deborah, et al.
(författare)
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Age and sex differences in the genetic architecture of measures of subjective health : Relationships with physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory
- 2024
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - : Oxford University Press. - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVES: Subjective health (SH) is not just an indicator of physical health, but also reflects active cognitive processing of information about one's own health and has been associated with emotional health measures, such as neuroticism and depression. Behavior genetic approaches investigate the genetic architecture of SH, i.e., genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in SH and associations with potential components such as physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Previous twin analyses have been limited by sex, sample size, age range, and focus on single covariates.METHODS: The current analysis used data from 24,173 adults ranging in age from 40-90 years from the international Interplay of Genes and Environment Across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium to investigate the genetic architecture of three measures of SH: self-rated health, health compared to others, and impact of health on activities. Independent pathways model of SH included physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory, with age, sex, and country included as covariates.RESULTS: Most or all of the genetic variance for SH measures was shared with physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory. Genetic architecture of SH differed across measures, age groups (40-65, 66-90), and sexes. Age comparisons indicated stronger correlations with all 3 covariates in older adults, often resulting from greater shared genetic variance.DISCUSSION: The predictive value of SH has been amply demonstrated. The higher genetic contributions to associations between SH and its components in older adults support the increasing conceptualization with age of SH as an intuitive summation of one's vital reserve.
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- Finkel, Deborah, et al.
(författare)
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Gender Differences in Longitudinal Trajectories of Change in Physical, Social, and Cognitive/Sedentary Leisure Activities
- 2018
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - : Oxford University Press. - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 73:8, s. 1491-1500
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: We examined changes in participation in cognitive, social, and physical leisure activities across middle and older adulthood and tested moderation of trajectories of change in participation by gender.Method: In all, 1,398 participants in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA) completed a 7-item leisure activity questionnaire up to 4 times over 17 years. Mean baseline age was 64.9 years (range = 36-91); 59% were women. Factor analysis identifed physical, social, and cognitive/sedentary leisure activity participation factors. Age-based latent growth curve models adjusted for marital status, gender, education, depressive symptoms, and physical health were used.Results: Overall, results indicated stability in social activities, increase in cognitive/sedentary activities, and decrease in physical activities, as well as accelerated decline in all three types of activities after about the age of 70 years. Social activity remained mostly stable for women and declined for men. Women reported higher levels of cognitive/sedentary leisure activity across the study. Both men and women declined in physical leisure activity. Variance in leisure activities increased with age; men demonstrated more variance in social activities and women in physical activities.Conclusions: Understanding change in leisure activities with age and by gender can have important implications for interventions and for use of leisure activity data in epidemiological research.
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| 5. |
- Finkel, Deborah, et al.
(författare)
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Longitudinal twin study of subjective health : Differences in genetic and environmental components of variance across age and sex
- 2020
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - : Oxford University Press. - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 75:1, s. 1-10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: The current analysis examines sex differences in longitudinal changes in genetic and environmental influences on three measures of subjective health.Method: Sample includes 7372 twins (mean intake age = 73.22) with up to 8 waves of measurement (mean = 3.1). Three subjective health (SH) items were included: general self-rated health (SRH), health compared to age peers (COMP), and impact of health on activities (ACT) which previous research shows capture different frames of reference.Results: Latent growth curve modeling indicated significant differences across gender and frame of reference in trajectories of change with age and in genetic and environmental contributions to change. Men have higher mean scores on all three SH measures, indicating better SH, but there were no sex differences in pattern of change with age. Accelerating declines with age were found for SRH and ACT, whereas COMP improved with age. Results indicated more genetic variance for women than men, but declining genetic variance for both after age 70. Increasing shared environmental variance with increasing age was also found for both sexes.Discussion: As aging triggers a re-evaluation of the meaning of "good health," physical aspects of health may become less important and shared cultural conceptions of health may become more relevant. This change in conceptions of good health may reflect both aging and the change in composition of the elderly population as a result of selective survival.
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| 6. |
- Finkel, Deborah, et al.
(författare)
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Sex differences in genetic and environmental influences on longitudinal change in functional ability in late adulthood
- 2015
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 70:5, s. 709-717
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives. To determine the extent to which genetic and environmental factors contribute to individual and gender differences in aging of functional ability.Method. Twenty assessments of functional ability are collected as part of the longitudinal Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging from 859 twins aged 50–88 at the first wave. Participants completed up to 6 assessments covering a 19-year period. Factor analysis was used to create 3 factors: flexibility, fine motor skills, and balance.Results. Latent growth curve analysis demonstrated increasing disability and variability after age 70. For flexibility, results indicated significant sex differences in mean change trajectories but no sex differences in components of variance. No sex differences were found for fine motor movement. For balance, there were no sex differences in mean change trajectories; however, there was significant genetic variance for changes in balance in women after age 70 but not for men.Discussion. Although idiosyncratic environmental influences account for a large part of increasing variance, correlated and shared rearing environmental effects were also evident. Thus, both microenvironmental (individual) and macroenvironmental (family and cultural) effects, as well as genetic factors, affect maintenance of functional ability in late adulthood.
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| 8. |
- Nilsen, Charlotta, et al.
(författare)
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Job Strain and Trajectories of Cognitive Change Before and After Retirement
- 2021
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 76:7, s. 1313-1322
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: We examined associations between job strain and trajectories of change in cognitive functioning (general cognitive ability plus verbal, spatial, memory, and speed domains) before and after retirement.Methods: Data on indicators of job strain, retirement age, and cognitive factors were available from 307 members of the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. Participants were followed up for up to 27 years (mean = 15.4, SD = 8.5).Results: In growth curve analyses controlling for age, sex, education, depressive symptoms, cardiovascular health, and twinness, greater job strain was associated with general cognitive ability (estimate = −1.33, p = .002), worse memory (estimate = −1.22, p = .007), speed (estimate = −1.11, p = .012), and spatial ability (estimate = −0.96, p = .043) at retirement. Greater job strain was also associated with less improvement in general cognitive ability before retirement and a somewhat slower decline after retirement. The sex-stratified analyses showed that the smaller gains of general cognitive ability before retirement (estimate = −1.09, p = .005) were only observed in women. Domain-specific analyses revealed that greater job strain was associated with less improvement in spatial (estimate = −1.35, p = .010) and verbal (estimate = −0.64, p = .047) ability before retirement in women and a slower decline in memory after retirement in women (estimate = 0.85, p = .008) and men (estimate = 1.12, p = .013). Neither preretirement nor postretirement speed was affected significantly by job strain.Discussion: Greater job strain may have a negative influence on overall cognitive functioning prior to and at retirement, while interrupting exposure to job strain (postretirement) may slow the rate of cognitive aging. Reducing the level of stress at work should be seen as a potential target for intervention to improve cognitive aging outcomes.
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| 10. |
- Sternäng, Ola, et al.
(författare)
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Grip Strength and Cognitive Abilities : Associations in Old Age
- 2016
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - : Oxford University Press. - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 71:5, s. 841-848
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVES: Both physical functioning and cognitive abilities are important for well-being, not least in old age. Grip strength is often considered an indicator of general vitality and, as such, may predict cognitive functioning. Few longitudinal studies have examined the relationship between grip strength and cognition, especially where specific cognitive abilities have been targeted.METHOD: Participants (n = 708, age range: 40-86 years at baseline) came from the population-based longitudinal Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. We used a longitudinal follow-up of 6 waves during 20 years. For the analyses, we used latent growth modeling, where latent growth trajectories were fitted to the cognitive traits (verbal ability, spatial ability, processing speed, and memory) or to the grip strength values and each, respectively, treated as time-varying covariates of the other trait.RESULTS: Results supported a longitudinal influence of grip strength on changes in cognitive function. Grip strength performance was associated with change in the 4 cognitive abilities after age 65 years.DISCUSSION: A rather stable connection was found between grip strength and cognitive abilities starting around 65 years of age. The starting period suggests that the association may be due to lifestyle changes, such as retirement, or to acceleration of the aging processes.
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