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Background: Twin studies have demonstrated shared genetic and environmental effects between eating disorders and alcohol involvement in adults and middle adolescents. However, fewer studies have focused on late adolescents or investigated a wide range of eating disorder dimensions and alcohol involvement subscales in both sexes. We examined genetic and environmental correlations among three eating disorder dimensions and two alcohol involvement subscale scores in late adolescent twins using bivariate twin models. Methods: Participants were 3568 female and 2526 male same‐sex twins aged 18 years old from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden. The Eating Disorder Inventory‐2 (EDI) assessed the drive for thinness, bulimia, and body dissatisfaction. Alcohol involvement was assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test consumption (AUDIT‐C) and problem (AUDIT‐P) subscales. Results: Only phenotypic and twin correlations in female twins met our threshold for twin modeling. The proportion of total variance for each trait accounted for by additive genetic factors ranged from 0.50 to 0.64 in female twins, with the rest explained by nonshared environmental factors and measurement error. Shared environmental factors played a minimal role in the variance of each trait. The strongest genetic correlation (ra) emerged between EDI bulimia and AUDIT‐P (ra = 0.46, 95% confidence interval: 0.37, 0.55), indicating that the proportion of genetic variance of one trait that was shared with the other trait was 0.21. Nonshared environmental correlations between eating disorder dimensions and alcohol involvement ranged from 0.03 to 0.13. Conclusions: We observed distinct patterns of genetic and environmental effects for co‐occurring eating disorder dimensions and alcohol involvement in female vs. male twins, supporting sex‐specific treatment strategies for late adolescents with comorbid eating disorders and alcohol use disorder. Our findings emphasize the importance of assessing family history of multiple eating disorder dimensions while treating late adolescents with problematic alcohol use, and vice versa, to improve detection and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To examine how body mass index ( BMI) and change in BMI are associated with mortality in old (70-79) and very old (≥80) individuals. Design Pooled data from three multidisciplinary prospective population-based studies: OCTO-twin, Gender, and NONA. Setting Sweden. Participants Eight hundred eighty-two individuals aged 70 to 95. Measurements BMI was calculated from measured height and weight as kg/m2. Information about survival status and time of death was obtained from the Swedish Civil Registration System. Results Mortality hazard was 20% lower for the overweight group than the normal-underweight group (relative risk ( RR) = 0.80, P = .011), and the mortality hazard for the obese group did not differ significantly from that of the normal-underweight group ( RR = 0.93, P = .603), independent of age, education, and multimorbidity. Furthermore, mortality hazard was 65% higher for the BMI loss group than for the BMI stable group ( RR = 1.65, P < .001) and 53% higher for the BMI gain group than for the BMI stable group ( RR = 1.53, P = .001). Age moderated the BMI change differences. That is, the higher mortality risks associated with BMI loss and gain were less severe in very old age. Conclusion Old persons who were overweight had a lower mortality risk than old persons who were of normal weight, even after controlling for weight change and multimorbidity. Persons who increased or decreased in BMI had a greater mortality risk than those who had a stable BMI, particularly those aged 70 to 79. This study lends further support to the belief that the World Health Organization guidelines for BMI are overly restrictive in old age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We examined the association among current self-reported sleep problems, lifetime binge eating (BE), and current obesity in women from the Swedish Twin study of Adults: Genes and Environment. Method: Logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate these associations in 3,790 women aged 20-47 years. Results: BE was reported by 244 (6.4%) women and was positively associated with not getting enough sleep ( p < .015), sleeping poorly ( p < .001), problems falling asleep ( p < .001), feeling sleepy during work or free time ( p < .001), and disturbed sleep ( p < .001). These same sleep variables, as well as napping and being a night person, were also significantly associated with obesity. The associations between BE and sleep remained after accounting for obesity. Discussion: This investigation offers empirical support for an independent association between sleep problems and BE, which is likely due to complex psychological, biological, neuroendocrine, and metabolic factors. © 2012 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]