The Association Between Somatic Health, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Autistic Traits
- PMID: 31811521
- PMCID: PMC7355269
- DOI: 10.1007/s10519-019-09986-3
The Association Between Somatic Health, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Autistic Traits
Abstract
This study used a twin cohort to investigate the association of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autistic traits with somatic health. A total of 344 twins (172 pairs; mean age 15.56 ± 5.62 years) enriched for ASD and other neurodevelopmental conditions were examined. Medical history and current physical problems were collected with a validated questionnaire to determine twin's somatic health. The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS-2) was used to measure the participant's severity of autistic traits. Identified somatic health issues with significant within-twin pair differences were tested in relation to both ASD diagnosis and autistic traits in a co-twin control model. Twins with ASD exhibited more neurological and immunological health problems compared to those without ASD (p = 0.005 and p = 0.004, respectively). The intra-pair differences of neurological conditions and SRS-2 score were significantly correlated in monozygotic twins differing for autism traits (r = 0.40, p = 0.001), while the correlation was not found for immunological problems. In addition, a conditional model for analysis of within-twin pair effects revealed an association between neurological problems and clinical ASD diagnosis (Odds ratio per neurological problem 3.15, p = 0.02), as well as autistic traits (β = 10.44, p = 0.006), after adjusting for possible effects of co-existing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and general intellectual abilities. Our findings suggest that neurological problems are associated with autism, and that non-shared environmental factors contribute to the overlap for both clinical ASD and autistic traits. Further population-based twin studies are warranted to validate our results and examine in detailed the shared genetic and environmental contributions of neurological problems and ASD.
Keywords: ASD; Autism spectrum disorder; Autistic traits; Comorbidity; Health; Neurodevelopmental disorders; Neurology; Twins.
Conflict of interest statement
Sven Bölte discloses that he has in the last 5 years acted as an author, consultant or lecturer for Shire, Medice, Roche, Eli Lilly, Prima Psychiatry, GLGroup, System Analytic, Ability Partner, Kompetento, Expo Medica, Clarion Healthcare, Abilia, and Prophase. He receives royalties for text books and diagnostic tools from Huber/Hogrefe, Kohlhammer and UTB. Pei-Yin Pan, Kristiina Tammimies, and Sven Bölte declare that they have no conflict of interest related to this article.
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