Twin's Birth-Order Differences in Height and Body Mass Index From Birth to Old Age: A Pooled Study of 26 Twin Cohorts Participating in the CODATwins Project

Yokoyama, Yoshie; Jelenkovic, Aline; Sund, Reijo; Sung, Joohon; Hopper, John L.; Ooki, Syuichi; Heikkilä, Kauko; Aaltonen, Sari; Tárnoki, Ádám Domonkos; Tárnoki, Dávid László; Willemsen, Gonneke; Bartels, Meike; Beijsterveldt, Catharina E. M. van; Saudino, Kimberly J.; Cutler, Tessa L.; Nelson, Tracy L.; Whitfield, Keith E.; Wardle, Jane; Llewellyn, Clare H.; Fisher, Abigail; He, Mingguang; Ding, Xiaohu; Bjerregaard-Andersen, Morten; Beck‐Nielsen, Henning; Sodemann, Morten; Song, Yun Mi; Yang, Sarah; Lee, Kayoung; Jeong, Hoe Uk; Knafo‐Noam, Ariel; Mankuta, David; Abramson, Lior; Burt, S. Alexandra; Klump, Kelly L.; Ordoñana, Juan R.; Sánchez-Romera, Juan F.; Colodro‐Conde, Lucía; Harris, Jennifer R.; Brandt, Ingunn; Nilsen, Thomas Sevenius; Craig, Jeffrey M.; Saffery, Richard; Ji, Fuling; Feng, Na; Pang, Zengchang; Dubois, Lise; Boivin, Michel; Brendgen, Mara; Dionne, Ginette; Vitaro, Frank; Martin, Nicholas; Medland, Sarah E.; Montgomery, Grant W.; Magnusson, Patrik K. E.; Pedersen, Nancy L.; Aslan, Anna K. Dahl; Tynelius, Per; Haworth, Claire M. A.; Plomin, Robert; Rebato, Esther; Rose, Richard J.; Goldberg, Jack; Rasmussen, Finn; Hur, Yoon Mi; Sørensen, Thorkild I. A.; Boomsma, Dorret I.; Kaprio, Jaakko; Silventoinen, Karri

doi:10.1017/thg.2016.11

Cited by 20 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Slightly higher BMI variance was found for DZ twins than for MZ twins in childhood, but this difference disappeared in adolescence; for height, no zygosity differences in the variances were seen (Jelenkovic et al, 2015). First-born twins were heavier in infancy and also slightly taller than second-born twins over childhood and adolescence, but this difference disappeared in adulthood (Yokoyama et al, 2016). Thus, in further genetic modeling, we used different means of BMI and height for MZ and DZ twins.…”

Section: Major Findings From Studies On Anthropometric Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The CODATwins Project: The Current Status and Recent Findings of COllaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins

et al. 2019

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The COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project is a large international collaborative effort to analyze individual-level phenotype data from twins in multiple cohorts from different environments. The main objective is to study factors that modify genetic and environmental variation of height, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and size at birth, and additionally to address other research questions such as long-term consequences of birth size. The project started in 2013 and is open to all twin projects in the world having height and weight measures on twins with information on zygosity. Thus far, 54 twin projects from 24 countries have provided individual-level data. The CODATwins database includes 489,981 twin individuals (228,635 complete twin pairs). Since many twin cohorts have collected longitudinal data, there is a total of 1,049,785 height and weight observations. For many cohorts, we also have information on birth weight and length, own smoking behavior and own or parental education. We found that the heritability estimates of height and BMI systematically changed from infancy to old age. Remarkably, only minor differences in the heritability estimates were found across cultural–geographic regions, measurement time and birth cohort for height and BMI. In addition to genetic epidemiological studies, we looked at associations of height and BMI with education, birth weight and smoking status. Within-family analyses examined differences within same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins in birth size and later development. The CODATwins project demonstrates the feasibility and value of international collaboration to address gene-by-exposure interactions that require large sample sizes and address the effects of different exposures across time, geographical regions and socioeconomic status.

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Section: Major Findings From Studies On Anthropometric Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The CODATwins Project: The Current Status and Recent Findings of COllaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins

et al. 2019

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“…Further, perinatal complications, such as asphyxia, have been associated with developmental deficits in both premature and SGA infants [ 68 ], which in turn have been shown to predict worse cognitive development. Both asphyxia and LBW are more common in the second-born than in the first-born twin [ 69 – 71 ]. Therefore, additional analyses adjusting for birth order were conducted: these analyses showed little effect of birth order on cognitive dysfunction and little change to the observed associations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations between birth characteristics and age-related cognitive impairment and dementia: A registry-based cohort study

et al. 2018

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BackgroundThere is evidence for long-lasting effects of birth characteristics on cognitive ability in childhood and adulthood. Further, low cognitive ability throughout the lifetime has been linked to age-related cognitive decline and dementia risk. However, little is known about the effects of birth characteristics on cognitive dysfunction late in life. Here we explore potential associations between birth characteristics (weight, head circumference, length, and gestational age), adjusted and not adjusted for gestational age, and cognitive impairment and dementia late in life.Methods and findingsData from twins in the Swedish Twin Registry born 1926–1960 were merged with information from the Swedish birth, patient, and cause of death registries, resulting in a sample of 35,191 individuals. A subsample of 4,000 twins aged 65 years and older also participated in a telephone cognitive screening in 1998–2002. Associations of birth characteristics with registry-based dementia diagnoses and on telephone-assessed cognitive impairment were investigated in the full sample and subsample, respectively. The full sample contained 907 (2.6%) individuals with a dementia diagnosis (an incidence rate of 5.9% per 100,000 person-years), 803 (2.4%) individuals born small for gestational age, and 929 (2.8%) individuals born with a small head for gestational age. The subsample contained 569 (14.2%) individuals with cognitive impairment. Low birth weight for gestational age and being born with a small head for gestational age were significant risk factors for cognitive dysfunction late in life, with an up to 2-fold risk increase (p < 0.001) compared to infants with normal growth and head size, even after controlling for familial factors, childhood socioeconomic status, and education in adulthood. In line with this, each additional 100 g birth weight and each additional millimeter head circumference significantly reduced the risk for dementia (hazard ratio 0.98, 95% confidence interval 0.97 to 0.99, p = 0.004) and cognitive impairment (odds ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.99 to 1.00, p = 0.004), respectively. Within-pair analyses of identical twins, though hampered by small sample size, suggested that the observed associations between birth characteristics and dementia are likely not due to underlying shared genetic or environmental etiology. A limitation of the present study is that registry-based dementia diagnoses likely miss some of the true dementia cases in the population. Further, a more precise measure of cognitive reserve early in life as well as a date of onset for the cognitive impairment measure in the subsample would have been favorable.ConclusionsIn this study, we found that infants of smaller birth size (i.e., low birth weight or small head circumference adjusted and unadjusted for gestational age) have a significantly higher risk of age-related cognitive dysfunction compared to those with normal growth, highlighting the importance of closely monitoring the cognitive development of such infants and evaluating the po...

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“…One of the major focuses of this study has been to investigate physical growth and development features of twins and triplets in childhood (Yokoyama, 2012;Yokoyama et al, 2005Yokoyama et al, , 2012Yokoyama et al, , 2013Yokoyama, Sugimoto, Pitkäniemi et al, 2011;Yokoyama et al, 2008Yokoyama et al, , 2009Yokoyama, Sugimoto, Sono et al, 2011). We analyzed the genetic architecture of the growth process (Silventoinen et al, 2010;Silventoinen, Karvonen et al, 2011; and participated in the CODATwins project (Yokoyama et al, 2016(Yokoyama et al, , 2018. In addition, the present dataset is the largest triplet sample in the world to provide longitudinal data.…”

Section: Focus Of the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The New West Japan Twins and Higher Order Multiple Births Registry

Yokoyama

2019

Twin Res Hum Genet

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The new West Japan Twins and Higher Order Multiple Births Registry was established by recruiting young twins and multiple births and by referrals from public health centers in the 1990s. The participants included in the survey comprised over 7800 twins and 4241 higher order multiples, and their families. Specifically, the present registry contains one of the largest triplet samples in the world. For these twins and multiples, data on year of delivery, mode of delivery, gestational age, intrapartum complications, longitudinal physical measures, motor milestones, cerebral palsy and feeding methods were obtained from records in the Maternal and Child Health Handbooks and schools. Participating mothers were asked to indicate family structure, parental educational history, maternal sleeping time, maternal health condition, maternal and paternal age at multiple delivery, complications during pregnancy, handedness of multiples and age at menarche of multiples. However, the zygosity differed among the various collaborating public health centers according to factors such as the time of investigation. Follow-up questionnaires have been mailed out every 3–4 years for longitudinal studies. This article describes the goals of this registry, recruitment of multiples and the focus of the study. The goals of this registry are not only to conduct research on human genetics and maternal and child health, but also to contribute to providing appropriate information for families with multiples.

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Twin's Birth-Order Differences in Height and Body Mass Index From Birth to Old Age: A Pooled Study of 26 Twin Cohorts Participating in the CODATwins Project

Cited by 20 publications

References 46 publications

The CODATwins Project: The Current Status and Recent Findings of COllaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins

The CODATwins Project: The Current Status and Recent Findings of COllaborative Project of Development of Anthropometrical Measures in Twins

Associations between birth characteristics and age-related cognitive impairment and dementia: A registry-based cohort study

The New West Japan Twins and Higher Order Multiple Births Registry

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