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Epidemiology and Population Health

The role of genetic and environmental influences on the association between childhood ADHD symptoms and BMI

International Journal of Obesity volume 43, pages 33–42 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives

Although childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been previously associated with concurrent and later obesity in adulthood, the etiology of this association remains unclear. The objective of this study is to determine the shared genetic effects of ADHD symptoms and BMI in a large sample of sibling pairs, consider how these shared effects may vary over time, and examine potential sex differences.

Subject/Methods

Sibling pair data were obtained from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health); childhood ADHD symptoms were reported retrospectively during young adulthood, while three prospective measurements of BMI were available from young adulthood to later adulthood. Cholesky decomposition models were fit to this data using Mx and maximum-likelihood estimation. The twin and sibling sample for these analyses included: 221 monozygotic (MZ) pairs (92 male–male, 139 female–female), 228 dizygotic (DZ) pairs (123 male–male, 105 female–female), 471 full-sibling (FS) pairs (289 male–male, 182 female–female), 106 male–female DZ twin pairs, and 234 male–female FS pairs.

Results

The magnitude of the association between childhood ADHD symptoms and BMI changed over time and by sex. The etiological relationship between childhood ADHD symptoms and the three prospective measurements of BMI differed for males and females, such that unique or non-shared environmental influences contributed to the relationship within males and genetic factors contributed to the relationship within females. Specifically, among females, genetic influences on childhood ADHD symptoms were partially shared with those effecting BMI and increased from adolescence to later adulthood (genetic correlation = 0.20 (95% CI: 0.07–0.36) in adolescence and 0.24 (95% CI: 0.10, 0.41) in adulthood).

Conclusion

Genetic influences on ADHD symptoms in childhood are partially shared with those effecting obesity. However, future research is needed to determine why this association is limited to females.

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Acknowledgements

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. Additional support was provided by P01-HL36587 and Duke Behavioral Medicine Research Center and by grant AG046938 from the National Institute on Aging to Chandra A. Reynolds and Sally Wadsworth (Co-PIs).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Behavior and Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Elizabeth K. Do PhD, MPH & Bernard F. Fuemmeler PhD, MPH

  2. Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Brett C. Haberstick PhD, Jeffrey M. Lessem PhD, MA & Andrew Smolen PhD, MS

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Redford B. Williams MD, Ilene C. Siegler PhD, MPH & Bernard F. Fuemmeler PhD, MPH

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  1. Elizabeth K. Do PhD, MPH
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Correspondence to Bernard F. Fuemmeler PhD, MPH.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the insitutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Do, E.K., Haberstick, B.C., Williams, R.B. et al. The role of genetic and environmental influences on the association between childhood ADHD symptoms and BMI. Int J Obes 43, 33–42 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-018-0236-5

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