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Unique genetic and environmental determinants of prolonged fatigue: a twin study
- Source :
- Psychological Medicine. 29:259-268
- Publication Year :
- 1999
- Publisher :
- Cambridge University Press (CUP), 1999.
-
Abstract
- Background. Prolonged fatigue syndromes have been proposed as prevalent and disabling forms of distress that occur independently of conventional notions of anxiety and depression.Methods. To investigate the genetic and environmental antecedents of common forms of psychological and somatic distress, we measured fatigue, anxiety, depression and psychological distress in 1004 normal adult twin pairs (533 monozygotic (MZ), 471 dizygotic (DZ)) over 50 years of age.Results. Familial aggregation of psychological distress, anxiety and fatigue appeared to be due largely to additive genetic factors (MZ[ratio ]DZ ratios of 2·12–2·69). The phenotypic correlations between the psychological measures (distress, anxiety and depression) were moderate (0·67–0·79) and higher than that between fatigue and psychological distress (0·38). Multivariate genetic modelling revealed a common genetic factor contributing to the development of all the observed phenotypes (though most strongly for the psychological forms), a second independent genetic factor also influenced anxiety and depression and a third independent genetic factor made a major contribution to fatigue alone. In total, 44% (95% CI 25–60%) of the genetic variance for fatigue was not shared by the other forms of distress. Similarly, the environmental factor determining psychological distress made negligible contributions to fatigue, which was underpinned largely by its own independent environmental factor.Conclusion. This study supports the aetiological independence of prolonged fatigue and, therefore, argues strongly for its inclusion in classification systems in psychiatry.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Time Factors
Generalized anxiety disorder
Population
Environment
Surveys and Questionnaires
medicine
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Humans
education
Psychiatry
Applied Psychology
Depression (differential diagnoses)
Depressive Disorder
education.field_of_study
Fatigue Syndrome, Chronic
Family aggregation
Middle Aged
medicine.disease
Anxiety Disorders
Twin study
Psychiatry and Mental health
Distress
Phenotype
Anxiety
Female
medicine.symptom
Psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14698978 and 00332917
- Volume :
- 29
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Psychological Medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....fbc891e8fcaaaa09424946239de70780