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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander BT, Henry Dasinger J, Intapad S (2014) Effect of low birth weight on women’s health. Clin Ther. doi:10.1016/j.clinthera.2014.06.026
Bagchi S, Salihu HM (2006) Birth weight discordance in multiple gestations: occurrence and outcomes. J Obstet Gynaecol 26(4):291–296
Blickstein I (2002) Normal and abnormal growth of multiples. Semin Neonatol 7(3):177–185
Christensen K, Wienke A, Skytthe A, Holm NV, Vaupel JW, Yashin AI (2001) Cardiovascular mortality in twins and the fetal origins hypothesis. Twin Res 4(5):344–349. doi:10.1375/1369052012506
Christensen K, Petersen I, Skytthe A, Herskind AM, McGue M, Bingley P (2006) Comparison of academic performance of twins and singletons in adolescence: follow-up study. BMJ 333(7578):1095. doi:10.1136/bmj.38959.650903.7C
Deeg DJ, Kriegsman DM (2003) Concepts of self-rated health: specifying the gender difference in mortality risk. Gerontologist 43(3):376–386
D’Onofrio BM, Class QA, Rickert ME, Larsson H, Langstrom N, Lichtenstein P (2013a) Preterm birth and mortality and morbidity: a population-based quasi-experimental study. JAMA Psychiatry 70(11):1231–1240
D’Onofrio BM, Lahey BB, Turkheimer E, Lichtenstein P (2013b) Critical need for family-based, quasi-experimental designs in integrating genetic and social science research. Am J Public Health 103(1):8
D’Onofrio BM, Class QA, Lahey BB, Larsson H (2014) Testing the developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis for psychopathology using family-based quasi-experimental designs. Child Dev Perspect 8(3):151–157
Gotay CC, Kawamoto CT, Bottomley A, Efficace F (2008) The prognostic significance of patient-reported outcomes in cancer clinical trials. J Clin Oncol 26(8):1355–1363
Hogberg L, Lundholm C, Cnattingius S, Oberg S, Iliadou AN (2013) Birthweight discordant female twins and their offspring: is the intergenerational influence on birthweight due to genes or environment? Hum Reprod 28(2):480–487
Idler EL, Benyamini Y (1997) Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies. J Health Soc Behav 38(1):21–37
Johnson W, Krueger RF, Bouchard TJ Jr, McGue M (2002) The personalities of twins: just ordinary folks. Twin Res 5(2):125–131. doi:10.1375/1369052022992
Kendler KS, Neale MC, MacLean CJ, Heath AC, Eaves LJ, Kessler RC (1993) Smoking and major depression. A causal analysis. Arch Gen Psychiatry 50(1):36–43
Kendler KS, Pedersen NL, Farahmand BY, Persson PG (1996) The treated incidence of psychotic and affective illness in twins compared with population expectation: a study in the Swedish Twin and Psychiatric Registries. Psychol Med 26(6):1135–1144
Kramer MS (1987) Determinants of low birth weight: methodological assessment and meta-analysis. Bull World Health Organ 65(5):663–737
Kramer MS (2013) The epidemiology of low birthweight. Nestle Nutr Inst Workshop Ser 74:1–10
Law CM, Shiell AW (1996) Is blood pressure inversely related to birth weight? The strength of evidence from a systematic review of the literature. J Hypertens 14(8):935–941
Lichtenstein P, De Faire U, Floderus B, Svartengren M, Svedberg P, Pedersen NL (2002) The Swedish Twin Registry: a unique resource for clinical, epidemiological and genetic studies. J Intern Med 252(3):184–205
Lichtenstein P, Sullivan PF, Cnattingius S, Gatz M, Johansson S, Carlström E, Pedersen NL (2006) The Swedish Twin Registry in the third millenium: an update. Twin Res Hum Genet 9(6):875–882
Magnus P (1984) Causes of variation in birth weight: a study of offspring of twins. Clin Genet 25(1):15–24
Magnusson PK, Almqvist C, Rahman I, Ganna A, Viktorin A, Walum H, Lichtenstein P (2013) The Swedish Twin Registry: establishment of a biobank and other recent developments. Twin Res Hum Genet 16(1):317–329
Martinez-Mesa J, Restrepo-Mendez MC, Gonzalez DA, Wehrmeister FC, Horta BL, Domingues MR, Menezes AM (2013) Life-course evidence of birth weight effects on bone mass: systematic review and meta-analysis. Osteoporos Int 24(1):7–18
McGue M, Osler M, Christensen K (2010) Causal inference and observational research: the utility of twins. Perspect Psychol Sci 5(5):546–556
Morley R, Dwyer T (2005) Studies of twins: what can they tell us about the fetal origins of adult disease? Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol 19(Suppl 1):2–7. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3016.2005.00608.x
Mosing MA, Zietsch BP, Shekar SN, Wright MJ, Martin NG (2009) Genetic and environmental influences on optimism and its relationship to mental and self-rated health: a study of aging twins. Behav Genet 39(6):597–604
Mosing MA, Pedersen NL, Martin NG, Wright MJ (2010) Sex differences in the genetic architecture of optimism and health and their interrelation: a study of Australian and Swedish twins. Twin Res Hum Genet 13(4):322–329
Mu M, Ye S, Bai MJ, Liu GL, Tong Y, Wang SF, Sheng J (2014) Birth weight and subsequent risk of asthma: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Heart Lung Circ 23(6):511–519
Muhlhausler BS, Hancock SN, Bloomfield FH, Harding R (2011) Are twins growth restricted? Pediatr Res 70(2):117–122
Myrskyla M, Fenelon A (2012) Maternal age and offspring adult health: evidence from the health and retirement study. Demography 49(4):1231–1257
Natalucci G, Becker J, Becher K, Bickle GM, Landolt MA, Bucher HU (2013) Self-perceived health status and mental health outcomes in young adults born with less than 1000 g. Acta Paediatr 102(3):294–299
Oberg S, Cnattingius S, Sandin S, Lichtenstein P, Iliadou AN (2011) Birth weight predicts risk of cardiovascular disease within dizygotic but not monozygotic twin pairs: a large population-based co-twin-control study. Circulation 123(24):2792–2798
Oberg S, Cnattingius S, Sandin S, Lichtenstein P, Morley R, Iliadou AN (2012) Twinship influence on morbidity and mortality across the lifespan. Int J Epidemiol 41(4):1002–1009. doi:10.1093/ije/dys067
Risnes KR, Vatten LJ, Baker JL, Jameson K, Sovio U, Kajantie E, Bracken MB (2011) Birthweight and mortality in adulthood: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Epidemiol 40(3):647–661
Saigal S, Feeny D, Rosenbaum P, Furlong W, Burrows E, Stoskopf B (1996) Self-perceived health status and health-related quality of life of extremely low-birth-weight infants at adolescence. JAMA 276(6):453–459. doi:10.1001/jama.1996.03540060029031
Saigal S, Stoskopf B, Pinelli J, Streiner D, Hoult L, Paneth N, Goddeeris J (2006) Self-perceived health-related quality of life of former extremely low birth weight infants at young adulthood. Pediatrics 118(3):1140–1148
Schwartz CE, Andresen EM, Nosek MA, Krahn GL (2007) Response shift theory: important implications for measuring quality of life in people with disability. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 88(4):529–536
Sorace J, Rogers M, Millman M, Rogers D, Price K, Queen S, Kelman J (2015) A comparison of disease burden between twins and control pairs in medicare: quantification of heredity’s role in human health. Popul Health Manag 6:6
Sprangers MA, Sloan JA, Veenhoven R, Cleeland CS, Halyard MY, Abertnethy AP, Zwinderman AH (2009) The establishment of the GENEQOL consortium to investigate the genetic disposition of patient-reported quality-of-life outcomes. Twin Res Hum Genet 12(3):301–311
StataCorp (2013) Stata: release 13. StataCorp LP, College Station
Sunyer J, Anto JM, Harris J, Torrent M, Vall O, Cullinan P, Newman-Taylor A (2001) Maternal atopy and parity. Clin Exp Allergy 31(9):1352–1355
Svedberg P, Gatz M, Lichtenstein P, Sandin S, Pedersen NL (2005) Self-rated health in a longitudinal perspective: a 9-year follow-up twin study. J Gerontol B 60(6):S331–S340
Svedberg P, Bardage C, Sandin S, Pedersen NL (2006) A prospective study of health, life-style and psychosocial predictors of self-rated health. Eur J Epidemiol 21(10):767–776
Svensson AC, Pawitan Y, Cnattingius S, Reilly M, Lichtenstein P (2006) Familial aggregation of small-for-gestational-age births: the importance of fetal genetic effects. Am J Obstet Gynecol 194(2):475–479
Sydsjo G (2011) Long-term consequences of non-optimal birth characteristics. Am J Reprod Immunol 1:81–87
Teoli DA, Zullig KJ, Hendryx MS (2013) Maternal fair/poor self-rated health and adverse infant birth outcomes. Health Care Women Int 18:18
van Beijsterveldt CE, Overbeek LI, Rozendaal L, McMaster MT, Glasner TJ, Bartels M, Boomsma DI (2015) Chorionicity and heritability estimates from twin studies: the prenatal environment of twins and their resemblance across a large number of traits. Behav Genet. doi:10.1007/s10519-015-9745-3
Weinberg CR, Shi M (2009) The genetics of preterm birth: using what we know to design better association studies. Am J Epidemiol 170(11):1373–1381
Whincup PH, Kaye SJ, Owen CG, Huxley R, Cook DG, Anazawa S, Yarbrough DE (2008) Birth weight and risk of type 2 diabetes: a systematic review. JAMA 300(24):2886–2897
Zwicker JG, Harris SR (2008) Quality of life of formerly preterm and very low birth weight infants from preschool age to adulthood: a systematic review. Pediatrics 121(2):e366–e376. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-0169
Acknowledgments
The present work was supported by NIH Grant AG037985, the Swedish Research Council 521-2013-8689, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare 2013-2292, and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2011-2015 Under Grant Agreement 259679). The Swedish Twin Registry is supported by the Swedish Ministry of Higher Education. We would like to thank the Swedish twins for their participation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mosing, M.A., Cnattingius, S., Gatz, M. et al. Associations Between Fetal Growth and Self-Perceived Health Throughout Adulthood: A Co-twin Control Study. Behav Genet 46, 457–466 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9776-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-015-9776-9