Age and sex differences in the genetic architecture of measures of subjective health: Relationships with physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory

Deborah Finkel; Margaret Gatz; Carol E Franz; Vibeke S Catts; Kaare Christensen; William Kremen; Marianne Nygaard; Brenda L Plassman; Perminder S Sachdev; Keith Whitfield; Nancy L Pedersen

doi:10.1093/geronb/gbae062

Age and sex differences in the genetic architecture of measures of subjective health: Relationships with physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory

J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2024 Apr 17:gbae062. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbae062. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Deborah Finkel^{1

2}, Margaret Gatz¹, Carol E Franz^{3

4}, Vibeke S Catts⁵, Kaare Christensen⁶, William Kremen^{3

4}, Marianne Nygaard⁷, Brenda L Plassman⁸, Perminder S Sachdev⁵, Keith Whitfield⁹, Nancy L Pedersen¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Center for Economic and Social Research, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
² Institute for Gerontology, College of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden.
³ Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
⁴ Center for Behavior Genetics of Aging, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA.
⁵ Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health, School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
⁶ Danish Aging Research Center, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
⁷ The Danish Twin Registry, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
⁸ Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.
⁹ Department of Psychology and Brain and Health, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

PMID: 38632885
DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbae062

Abstract

Objectives: Subjective health (SH) is not just an indicator of physical health, but also reflects active cognitive processing of information about one's own health and has been associated with emotional health measures, such as neuroticism and depression. Behavior genetic approaches investigate the genetic architecture of SH, i.e., genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in SH and associations with potential components such as physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Previous twin analyses have been limited by sex, sample size, age range, and focus on single covariates.

Methods: The current analysis used data from 24,173 adults ranging in age from 40-90 years from the international Interplay of Genes and Environment Across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium to investigate the genetic architecture of three measures of SH: self-rated health, health compared to others, and impact of health on activities. Independent pathways model of SH included physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory, with age, sex, and country included as covariates.

Results: Most or all of the genetic variance for SH measures was shared with physical health, depressive symptoms, and episodic memory. Genetic architecture of SH differed across measures, age groups (40-65, 66-90), and sexes. Age comparisons indicated stronger correlations with all 3 covariates in older adults, often resulting from greater shared genetic variance.

Discussion: The predictive value of SH has been amply demonstrated. The higher genetic contributions to associations between SH and its components in older adults support the increasing conceptualization with age of SH as an intuitive summation of one's vital reserve.

Keywords: CIRS; SRH; Twins; Word recall.

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