Are twins and singletons comparable? A study of disease-related and lifestyle characteristics in adult women.
Are twins and singletons comparable? A study of disease-related and lifestyle characteristics in adult women.
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DOI：
10.1375/twin.4.6.464
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发表时间：
2001-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
MacGregor, A J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Andrew, T;Hart, D J;MacGregor, A J
经典的双胞胎研究有时被描述为“完美的自然实验”，用于调查复杂疾病的病因学，但双胞胎设计的假设需要进行经验检验，如果他们的结果被认为是无偏的，并代表单胞胎人群。在这项研究中，疾病和流行的生活方式特征的双胞胎参与者之间进行了比较，在圣托马斯医院英国成人双胞胎登记处，最大的双胞胎志愿者登记在英国的老年疾病的研究，和一个平行的人口为基础的研究单胎妇女。发现的唯一差异是体重，其中同卵（MZ）双胞胎更轻，比异卵（DZ）双胞胎和单胞胎的方差更小。对于研究的其他变量，未发现志愿双胞胎与年龄匹配的单胎女性在以下分布或患病率方面存在差异：骨矿物质密度、骨关节炎、血压、高血压药物使用、身高、子宫切除术和卵巢切除术史、绝经状态以及当前酒精和总体烟草消费。我们的结论是，双胞胎研究的结果可以推广到单胎人口的这些措施和疾病的结果。
The classic twin study is sometimes described as "the perfect natural experiment" for the investigation of the aetiology of complex disease, but assumptions of the twin design need to be empirically tested if their results are to be considered unbiased and representative of singleton populations. In this study comparisons of disease and prevalence of lifestyle characteristics have been made between twin participants in the St Thomas' Hospital UK adult twin registry, the largest twin volunteer register in the UK for the study of diseases of ageing, and a parallel population-based study of singleton women. The only differences found were for weight, where monozygotic (MZ) twins were lighter and had a smaller variance than dizygotic (DZ) twins and singletons. For the other variables studied, volunteer twins were not found to differ from age-matched singleton women in distribution or prevalence of: bone mineral density, osteoarthritis, blood pressure, hypertensive drug use, height, history of hysterectomy and ovariectomy, menopausal status and current alcohol and overall tobacco consumption. We conclude that the results of twin studies can be generalised to singleton populations for these measures and disease outcomes.