Nancy L Pedersen

..In conclusion, liability to first occurrence of acute myocardial infarction is moderately influenced by genetic variants in both sexes. The familial influence on phenotypic variance is exclusively explained by additive genetic factors...

..Although these genetic estimates for incident disease are lower than those for prevalent disease, the importance of genetic factors for liability to Alzheimer's disease is considerable even late in life...

..Low education is confirmed as a risk factor for dementia. Findings from three different analytic approaches showed that genetic influences did not explain this association...

..Swedish population-based national health registers are widely used data sources in epidemiological research. Register-based diagnoses of Parkinson's disease have not been validated against clinical information...

..We confirm the protective effect of smoking on Parkinson's disease and establish that the association is only partially explained by genetic and familial environmental factors...

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..Their relationships and possible co-regulation with other established CVD biomarkers are also examined...

..Poor fetal nutrition has been suggested to explain this association. Our objective was to determine whether genetic factors contribute to the association between low birth weight and subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes...

..Studies have found associations between low birth weight and increased risks of cardiovascular diseases in adulthood. However, these associations could be due to confounding by genetic or socioeconomic factors...

..We investigated the relationship of oral contraceptives and postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) to risk of reflux symptoms, controlling for genetic factors and body mass...

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..However, neither variation in the CRP and IL6 genes nor circulating levels of their respective protein products were associated with an increased risk of developing late-life dementias...

..The preponderance of discordant twin pairs provides an ideal material for studying environmental risk factors and potential genotype-by-environment interaction...

..We aimed to verify the association between diabetes and the risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia in twins and to explore whether genetic and early-life environmental factors could contribute to this association...

..Concordance rates for PD or parkinsonism were somewhat higher but the heritability estimate was nonsignificant. Our longitudinal analyses demonstrate that PD and parkinsonism are modestly heritable...

..Here we investigate the extent to which genetic variants in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) are associated with pair-bonding and related social behaviors in humans...

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..Therefore, the objective was to evaluate heritability for different aspects of lung function, and to investigate how the estimates are affected by adjustments for smoking and respiratory symptoms...

..These findings suggest plausible mechanisms for chronic fatiguing illness...

..This study first considers age and cohort explanations for age-related changes in mean values and variance in self-rated health. Second, it evaluates the contributions of genes and environments to self-rated health measured longitudinally...

..Overall prevalence rate for PD was 496 per 100,000 individuals. Among the 132 PD cases identified, there were only three concordant twin pairs. In total 7.2% of PD cases reported a first degree relative with PD...

..78). No association was found for prostate cancer. We conclude that age is an important effect modifier of cancer risk associated with obesity and that obesity and overweight in young adult life may affect cancer risk also later in life...

..Additionally, serum MIC-1/GDF15 levels were directly correlated with survival time independently of genetic background. Serum MIC-1/GDF15 is a novel predictor of all-cause mortality...

..Specificity was 98% for the Inpatient Discharge Registry and 100% for the Cause of Death Registry...

..Few studies have examined the comorbidities of CWP in the general population. Furthermore, little is known about the importance of familial (genetic and family environmental) factors in the etiology of co-occurrence...

..Inflammation is associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia. In light of the chronic inflammatory properties of the atopic disorders asthma, eczema and rhinitis, we hypothesized an association with dementia...

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..CONCLUSION: In agreement with previous twin data, family resistance in migraine is mainly due to genetic factors, whereas environmental influences make family members different, not similar...

..However, the results were sensitive to issues related to power, minor effects of the genes, ethnic differences and the complex mechanism underlying obesity...

..The study highlights the importance of acknowledging nonadditive genes underlying the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases...

..In particular, we describe recent efforts to screen all twins born between 1959 and 1985, and young twin pairs when they turn 9 and 12 years of age. For these studies, we present initial frequencies of common conditions and exposures...

..We investigated associations between lifestyle factors and gastroesophageal reflux (GER) symptoms, with and without controlling for genetic predisposition...

..This study examined how interpersonal relationships, specifically marital quality and adequacy of social support, are associated with depressive symptoms among women...

..To assess the influence of smoking, coffee and tea consumption on the risk for bladder pain syndrome (BPS) using the O'Leary Interstitial Cystitis Symptom Index (ICSI)...

..Results indicate that variants of ABCA1 may affect the risk of AD, providing further support for a genetic link between AD and cholesterol metabolism...

..Shared environmental influences rather than genetic background play a role in the occurrence of SCI and CIND...

..The importance of genetic factors for BPS is receiving growing attention, but data so far are of a preliminary nature...

..Similar results for tests of the AE, DE and E models against the ADE model are also derived. Failing to use the appropriate reference distribution can lead to invalid conclusions...

..To assess the impact of oral contraceptives on lower urinary tract dysfunction in premenopausal women...

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..CONCLUSION: As many as 1 per 500 of the general population are affected by cluster headache. Twin concordance seems low, but genetic factors may play a role for familial clustering...

..In the oldest age group (>or=67 years), associations between self-rated health and spatial reasoning, perceptual speed, and visual memory were entirely due to genetic factors...

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..To estimate the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in chronic widespread pain, and to assess whether there are sex differences in the type or magnitude of these influences...

..In conclusion, our data imply genetic influences for AP and CHD death among both sexes and that AP is important as a risk factor for CHD death in both males and females, due in part to shared genetic pathways...

..We found no evidence for sex differences in heritability in any of the age groups, however, models allowing prevalences of irritable bowel syndrome to differ between sexes and age groups fitted best...

..These results suggest an association between a single gene and pair-bonding behavior in humans, and indicate that the well characterized influence of AVP on pair-bonding in voles may be of relevance also for humans...

..Genetic and familial factors are of importance only for some of these associations...

..Further attention is merited to elucidate the role of anti-PC in AD development and the usefulness of anti-PC as a part of risk prediction, prognosis, diagnosis, or treatment...

..Results were consistent between AD and PD, suggesting the presence of equivalent detrimental and protective alleles. These data highlight a genomic region in the proximity of IDE that may contribute to AD and PD in a similar manner...

..Common findings are increased risk associated with pesticide exposure and no association between Parkinson's disease and welding...

..We conclude that women are not at higher risk of developing dementia, but there is a hint that different genetic processes may be involved for women than for men...

..Several studies have identified occupational exposure to extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF) as a potential risk factor for neurodegenerative disease, but the evidence is contradictory and inconclusive...

..Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) remains an idiopathic and controversial entity...

..3 - 11.4). We performed novel sequencing of the MAO locus and validated genetic variants found in public databases prior to constructing haplotypes of the MAO locus in a Swedish sample (N = 573 individuals)...

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..However, other explanations such as personality characteristics influencing how experiences with parents are interpreted or circumstances in adult life that affect the recall of experiences could not be ruled out...

..Twins with the shortest telomeres had a three times greater risk of death during the follow-up period than their co-twins with the longest telomere measurements [hazard ratio (RR) = 2.8, 95% confidence interval 1.1-7.3, P = 0.03]...

..Results indicated that twin similarity for slopes decreases when mortality is accounted for, but that considerable age-related covariation remains...

..Although the outcome phenotype used in the present study is not behavioral, the analyses demonstrate the potential of frailty models for quantitative genetic analyses of categorical phenotypes...

..In the following we describe the preliminary strategy being implemented in the Database Core of GenomEUtwin...

..However, many studies have not been able to replicate findings of association between specific polymorphisms and diastolic and systolic blood pressure...

..To determine whether exposure to low doses of ionising radiation in infancy affects cognitive function in adulthood...

..While total variance showed a positive age trend, genetic variance tended to be stable across age groups, whereas individual specific environmental variance was significantly lower in adolescent women as compared to older women...

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..0001). Our results suggest for the first time that the CYP2C19 polymorphism might be of importance for depressive symptoms, as here shown for older European adults...

..Multivariate model fitting indicated that genetic influences on adults' coping differentially reflect genetic factors in common with personality traits. The sources of covariation also showed significant gender differences...

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..Using a two-locus model, we found no evidence for an additional Lp(a) locus on chromosome 1 in a linkage study among 483 dizygotic twin pairs...

..Therefore, we aimed to examine if there is a genetic component to the co-occurrence of MDD and IBS in participants from the population-based Swedish Twin Registry...

..The results suggest that, as predicted by the processing speed theory of cognitive aging, processing speed is a leading indicator of age changes in memory and spatial ability, but not verbal ability...

..Comparative ratings appear most accurate for smoking and alcohol use, and less consistent for mental health symptoms and self-rated health...

..To analyze the risk of cognitive impairment among female Swedish Twins with regard to endogenous and exogenous hormone exposure...

..The present findings provide support for theories of the increasing influence of the environment with age on cognitive abilities...

..Among monozygotic twins where both twins had Alzheimer's disease, the within pair difference in age of onset ranged from both becoming demented in the same year to 7 years difference in onset...

..The data analysis suggests that treatments and public health interventions need to recognize the magnitude of genetic factors if short-term and long-term interventions are to be effective...

..These findings points to the conclusion that type 2 diabetes is associated with accelerated cognitive decline in old age that may result in dementia...

..Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) interferes with the quality of life and carries an increased risk for esophageal adenocarcinoma. We investigated genetic influence in the development of reflux...

..Results were adjusted for baseline CVD, smoking, and age. These findings suggest that a clustering of CVD risk factors partially mediate the association between cynicism and CVD in an older population...

..65, 95% CI: 0.48, 0.89). These findings are compatible with the hypotheses that adult oral diseases are associated with the probability of exposure in childhood and that earlier age at exposure lowers risk...

..This information illustrates that the number of affected sib pairs for linkage studies is relatively limited, but the sample sizes are promising for association studies...

..Greater participation in intellectual-cultural activities was associated with lower risk of Alzheimer's disease for women, although not for men...

..More data, however, are needed to gain precision in these estimates...

..These same forces may overlap with those that influence higher or lower educational attainment or those leading to better or worse pulmonary functioning...

..Although sample specific effects are present, we have shown that genes play a major role in determining the variance of apolipoprotein and lipid levels in four independent twin samples from three different countries...

..Numerous nosological decisions are made when moving from the common human symptom of unusual fatigue to the rare chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). These decisions have infrequently been subjected to rigorous evaluation...

..In many biomedical disorders, early age at onset (AAO) is an index of high liability to illness which is manifest by an increased risk of illness in relatives. Most but not all prior studies report such a pattern for major depression (MD)...

..The present report updates the prior results by using 17 additional years of follow-up, including members of opposite-sex twin pairs, and addressing biases arising from cohort effects and from excluding pairs with unknown zygosity...

..Prior studies suggest that the personality traits of neuroticism and extroversion may be related to the liability to major depression (MD)...

..Findings are discussed in the context of theories related to personality, psychological distress, arousal, and cognitive function...

..Such findings point to the importance of taking a life-course perspective to designing interventions to delay or to prevent dementia...

..Despite differential longevity and susceptibility to disease, there are no consistent indications that men and women show different patterns of cognitive aging...

..We found no sex-specific genetic influences. In other words, the same genetic effects were operating for men and women. Furthermore, the magnitude of genetic effect was similar for men and women...

..Social homogamy may be more important for some substance use traits such as alcohol consumption and tobacco use status but not others...

..Analyses of sex effects suggested that men and women differed in the frequency of lifetime GAD and level of neuroticism; however, no sex differences for genetic and environmental influences for either trait were identified...

..The findings emphasize the extent to which research is needed to uncover nonfamilial environmental influences on cognitive dysfunction in later life...

..Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a serious mental illness with marked morbidity and mortality...

..Twin studies using selected samples have shown high heritability for Alzheimer disease (AD)...

..There were no significant findings for LRP. Dominance, often untested in previous studies, was important in the current study's findings...