Familial association between allergic disorders and depression in adult Finnish twins

Abstract

Clinical studies have shown a relationship between allergic disorders and depression, panic disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and social anxiety for a significant subset of patients with these disorders. The nature of the relationship, whether due to shared environmental or biologic vulnerabilities or as a result of the stress of chronic illness, has been less clear. By examining the covariance of atopic disorders and depressive symptoms in a community sample of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins, the contribution of genetic and/or shared environmental etiological factors can be established. A Finnish sample of 1337 MZ and 2506 DZ twin pairs, ages 33-60 years, was sent questionnaires inquiring about history of asthma, eczema, and atopic rhinitis, as well as the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The nature of the covariation between twins of these symptoms was investigated by fitting competing genetic and environmental models. Within-person correlation between atopic symptoms and BDI was 0.103 (P < 0.001) for the total sample. Using the Mx statistical modeling program to fit the data to competing quantitative genetic models, the best fitting model estimated that 64% of the association between atopy and BDI was due to shared familial vulnerability, primarily additive genetic influences. Although the measures for allergic disorders and depression are crude, this study supports the hypothesis that there is a small shared genetic risk for atopic and depressive symptoms, and if replicated, may open research for common mechanisms between allergic and depressive disorders. Am. J. Med. Genet. (Neuropsychiatr. Genet.) 96:146-153, 2000.

Atopy and depression: results from the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort Study

“…Our findings, based on data from the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort, provide firm support to the findings of previous studies [13][14][15][16][17][18] concerning an association between depression and atopic disorders. The results of this 31-year prospective follow-up, moreover, suggest that in females the presence of atopic symptoms, verified by skin-prick tests, increase the risk of depression up to 4.7-fold when compared with nonatopic female cohort members.…”

“…It has been suggested that atopic disorders and depression share a common genetic etiology. 13 Since there is evidence that in women genetic factors play a greater role in the etiology of depression than in men, 58,59 we speculate that even the pathophysiology of the atopy-depression association could have arisen from different origins in females and males. For example, with respect to the serotonin metabolism, Enoch et al 60 have recently established that the 5-HT(2A) promoter polymorphism is associated with affective disorders in women but not in men.…”

“…2,3 Since atopic allergy itself is an IgE-mediated immune system disorder and depression has been shown to be associated with changes in altered immunity, [5][6][7][8][9] it has been postulated that certain immune mediators, for example cytokines, contribute to the mechanism behind both allergic and depressive symptoms. [10][11][12][13] First-degree relatives of asthmatic children apparently exhibit high rates of depression. 14, 15 Wamboldt et al 16 have provided support for the hypothesis of a shared genetic factor between atopy and behavioral as well as emotional symptoms in a study of juvenile twins, and later between atopy and depression involving an adult twin sample.…”

“…14, 15 Wamboldt et al 16 have provided support for the hypothesis of a shared genetic factor between atopy and behavioral as well as emotional symptoms in a study of juvenile twins, and later between atopy and depression involving an adult twin sample. 13 We have previously demonstrated, at epidemiological level, that hospital-treated atopic disorders increase the risk of developing a severe, hospitaltreated depression up to three-fold in males and females, 17 and that clinically manifest atopic disorders increase the risk of self-reported doctordiagnosed depression up to 2.7-fold in females, but not in males. 18 These findings urged us to investigate now for the first time, whether the sex-specific association between atopic disorders and depression is dependent on the severity of depression.…”

The role of perinatal problems in risk of co-morbid psychiatric and medical disorders in adulthood

“…A review of studies on perinatal risk and later health problems suggested that exposure to stress in utero and/or early in life may increase vulnerability to subsequent normative stress and impair functions of the central nervous system (CNS) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (Sanchez et al 2001). These changes are hypothesized to elevate the risk for both emotion regulation and physical health problems, particularly related to respiratory function (Wamboldt et al 2000) and cardiovascular reactivity (Sanchez et al 2001). Animal studies show that chronic perinatal stress increases the risk for subsequent problems in physical health, affect and behavior (Ward, 1991).…”