title: The developmental association between eating disorders symptoms and symptoms of depression and anxiety in juvenile twin girls.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated the role of genetic and environmental factors in the developmental association among symptoms of eating disorders, depression, and anxiety syndromes in 8-13-year-old and 14-17-year-old twin girls.
  
  
  METHODS
  Multivariate genetic models were fitted to child-reported longitudinal symptom data gathered from clinical interview on 408 MZ and 198 DZ female twin pairs from the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioural Development (VTSABD).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Model-fitting revealed distinct etiological patterns underlying the association among symptoms of eating disorders, depression, overanxious disorder (OAD), and separation anxiety disorder (SAD) during the course of development: 1) a common genetic factor influencing liability to all symptoms - of early and later OAD, depression, SAD, and eating symptoms; 2) a distinct genetic factor specifically indexing liability to early eating disorders symptoms; 3) a shared environmental factor specifically influencing early depression and early eating disorders symptoms; and 4) a common environmental factor affecting liability to symptoms of later eating disorders and both early and later separation anxiety.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggest a pervasive genetic effect that influences liability to symptoms of over-anxiety, separation anxiety, depression, and eating disorder throughout development, a shared environmental influence on later adolescent eating problems and persistent separation anxiety, genetic influences specific to early eating disorders symptoms, and a shared environmental factor influencing symptoms of early eating and depression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Genetics and Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.
authors.forename: Judy L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Silberg
authors.forename: Cynthia M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Bulik
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D001010:Anxiety, Separation / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D002032:Bulimia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010641:Phenotype; D012307:Risk Factors; D012931:Social Environment; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D014768:Virginia