title: Associations Between Fetal Growth and Self-Perceived Health Throughout Adulthood: A Co-twin Control Study.
abstract: The literature shows evidence for long-lasting effects of low birth weight (LBW) on many health outcomes, but little is known about effects on self-perceived health. Findings are mixed and studies are small, mostly focusing on LBW effects on health outcomes before adulthood. Further, as LBW and most health conditions including self-perceived health are partly heritable, associations between birth weight (BW) and adverse health outcomes may also be due to shared genetic as well as other (pre- and postnatal) unmeasured environmental influences. We explored LBW effects on self-perceived health in early and later adulthood using a very large and genetically informative sample of more than 50,000 Swedish twins. In addition, analyses within twin pairs (the co-twin control design) were used to examine potential associations between BW and the offspring's risk for poor self-perceived health independent of shared environmental or genetic factors, evidence which is critical for the understanding of underlying mechanisms. Results showed that lower BW was significantly associated with poorer self-perceived health during adulthood, although the effect size was small. Co-twin control analyses suggested that this increased risk may be due to shared underlying liability (environmental or genetic) rather than a direct effect of BW, but findings were not conclusive.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Miriam.Mosing@ki.se.|Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Miriam.Mosing@ki.se.
authors.forename: Miriam A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mosing
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cnattingius
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.|Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gatz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jenae M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Neiderhiser
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.|Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Nancy L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Pedersen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D047109:Fetal Development; D006262:Health; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012649:Self Concept; D014427:Twins
keywords: Birth weight; Fetal growth; Self-rated health; Subjective health; Twin design