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Anorexia risk
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Anorexia may be tied to hormones in womb
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Photo: R.M. Rajarathinam
Risk of anorexia is high in female twins
Anorexia is 10 times as common in women as in men, and a new study suggests that female sex hormones in the womb may play a part.
Researchers used the Swedish twin registry to study 4,226 pairs of female twins, 3,451 pairs of male twins and 4,478 pairs of opposite-sex twins, all born from 1935 to 1958.
They found 51 cases of anorexia among the female twins, 3 among the male twins and 36 among the opposite-sex pairs. The study was published in the December issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.
As expected, the risk of anorexia in female twins was higher than in male twins.
But in the opposite-sex twins, 16 anorexia cases, almost half, were in males. In other words, the male member of a male-female twin pair had a risk for anorexia statistically no different from the risk among females.
Studies have shown that shared family environment has little effect on the development of anorexia.
“Anorexia is a dangerous illness,” said Marco Procopio, the lead author and a research fellow at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England.
“And it’s important that we be aware of the early signs of development of the disease.” (NYT)
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