Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Aug;15(4):473-82.
doi: 10.1017/thg.2012.25.

Common psychiatric disorders and caffeine use, tolerance, and withdrawal: an examination of shared genetic and environmental effects

Jocilyn E Bergin  1 , Kenneth S Kendler
Affiliations

Common psychiatric disorders and caffeine use, tolerance, and withdrawal: an examination of shared genetic and environmental effects

Jocilyn E Bergin et al. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2012 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies examined caffeine use and caffeine dependence and risk for the symptoms, or diagnosis, of psychiatric disorders. The current study aimed to determine if generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, phobias, major depressive disorder (MDD), anorexia nervosa (AN), or bulimia nervosa (BN) shared common genetic or environmental factors with caffeine use, caffeine tolerance, or caffeine withdrawal.

Method: Using 2,270 women from the Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders, bivariate Cholesky decomposition models were used to determine if any of the psychiatric disorders shared genetic or environmental factors with caffeine use phenotypes.

Results: GAD, phobias, and MDD shared genetic factors with caffeine use, with genetic correlations estimated to be 0.48, 0.25, and 0.38, respectively. Removal of the shared genetic and environmental parameter for phobias and caffeine use resulted in a significantly worse fitting model. MDD shared unique environmental factors (environmental correlation=0.23) with caffeine tolerance; the genetic correlation between AN and caffeine tolerance and BN and caffeine tolerance were 0.64 and 0.49, respectively. Removal of the genetic and environmental correlation parameters resulted in significantly worse fitting models for GAD, phobias, MDD, AN, and BN, which suggested that there was significant shared liability between each of these phenotypes and caffeine tolerance. GAD had modest genetic correlations with caffeine tolerance, 0.24, and caffeine withdrawal, 0.35.

Conclusions: There was suggestive evidence of shared genetic and environmental liability between psychiatric disorders and caffeine phenotypes. This might inform us about the etiology of the comorbidity between these phenotypes.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Measurement of variables for current study. Note: n = number; GAD = generalized anxiety disorder; PAN = panic disorder; PHO = phobia; MDD = major depressive disorder; AN = anorexia nervosa; BN = bulimia nervosa; N/A = not applicable.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Bivariate model for psychiatric phenotypes (Psyc) and caffeine phenotypes (Caf). Note: A =heritability component; E =unique environment component; ra = genetic correlation; re = unique environmental/error.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aggen SH, Neale MC, Kendler KS. DSM criteria for major depression: Evaluating symptom patterns using latent-trait item response models. Psychological Medicine. 2005;35:475–487. - PubMed
    1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 3. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 1980.
    1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual for psychiatric disorders. 4. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press; 1994. DSM-IV.
    1. Amin N, Byrne E, Johnson J, Chenevix-Trench G, Walter S, Nolte IM, Vink JM, Rawal R, Mangino M, Teumer A, Keers JC, Verwoert G, Baumeister S, Biffar R, Petersmann A, Dahmen N, Doering A, Isaacs A, Broer L, Wray NR, Montgomery GW, Levy D, Psaty BM, Gudnason V, Chakravarti A, Sulem P, Gudbjartsson DF, Kiemeney LA, Thorsteinsdottir U, Stefansson K, van Rooij FJ, Aulchenko YS, Hottenga JJ, Rivadeneira FR, Hofman A, Uitterlinden AG, Hammond CJ, Shin SY, Ikram A, Witteman JC, Janssens AC, Snieder H, Tiemeier H, Wolfenbuttel BH, Oostra BA, Heath AC, Wichmann E, Spector TD, Grabe HJ, Boomsma DI, Martin NG, van Duijn CM. Genome-wide association analysis of coffee drinking suggests association with CYP1A1/CYP1A2 and NRCAM. Moleular Psychiatry. 2011 doi: 10.1038/mp.2011.101. Epub ahead of print. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baker JH, Mitchell KS, Neale MC, Kendler KS. Eating disorder symptomatology and substance use disorders: Prevalence and shared risk in a population based twin sample. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 2010;43:648–658. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms