Shared genetic risk between eating disorder- and substance-use-related phenotypes: Evidence from genome-wide association studies
- PMID: 32064741
- PMCID: PMC7429266
- DOI: 10.1111/adb.12880
Shared genetic risk between eating disorder- and substance-use-related phenotypes: Evidence from genome-wide association studies
Abstract
Eating disorders and substance use disorders frequently co-occur. Twin studies reveal shared genetic variance between liabilities to eating disorders and substance use, with the strongest associations between symptoms of bulimia nervosa and problem alcohol use (genetic correlation [rg ], twin-based = 0.23-0.53). We estimated the genetic correlation between eating disorder and substance use and disorder phenotypes using data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Four eating disorder phenotypes (anorexia nervosa [AN], AN with binge eating, AN without binge eating, and a bulimia nervosa factor score), and eight substance-use-related phenotypes (drinks per week, alcohol use disorder [AUD], smoking initiation, current smoking, cigarettes per day, nicotine dependence, cannabis initiation, and cannabis use disorder) from eight studies were included. Significant genetic correlations were adjusted for variants associated with major depressive disorder and schizophrenia. Total study sample sizes per phenotype ranged from ~2400 to ~537 000 individuals. We used linkage disequilibrium score regression to calculate single nucleotide polymorphism-based genetic correlations between eating disorder- and substance-use-related phenotypes. Significant positive genetic associations emerged between AUD and AN (rg = 0.18; false discovery rate q = 0.0006), cannabis initiation and AN (rg = 0.23; q < 0.0001), and cannabis initiation and AN with binge eating (rg = 0.27; q = 0.0016). Conversely, significant negative genetic correlations were observed between three nondiagnostic smoking phenotypes (smoking initiation, current smoking, and cigarettes per day) and AN without binge eating (rgs = -0.19 to -0.23; qs < 0.04). The genetic correlation between AUD and AN was no longer significant after co-varying for major depressive disorder loci. The patterns of association between eating disorder- and substance-use-related phenotypes highlights the potentially complex and substance-specific relationships among these behaviors.
Keywords: eating disorders; genetic correlation; substance use.
© 2020 Society for the Study of Addiction.
Conflict of interest statement
Competing Financial Interests
The authors report the following potential competing interests. O. Andreassen received a speaker’s honorarium from Lundbeck. G. Breen received grant funding and consultancy fees in preclinical genetics from Eli Lilly, consultancy fees from Otsuka and has received honoraria from Illumina. C. Bulik served on Shire Scientific Advisory Boards; she receives author royalties from Pearson. D. Degortes served as a speaker and on advisory boards, and has received consultancy fees for participation in research from various pharmaceutical industry companies including: AstraZeneca, Boehringer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Genesis Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Lundbeck, Organon, Sanofi, UniPharma, and Wyeth; he has received unrestricted grants from Lilly and AstraZeneca as director of the Sleep Research Unit of Eginition Hospital (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece). J. Hudson has received grant support from Shire and Sunovion, and has received consulting fees from DiaMentis, Shire, and Sunovion. A. Kaplan is a member of the Shire Canadian BED Advisory Board and is on the steering committee for the Shire B/educated Educational Symposium: June 15–16, 2018. J. Kennedy served as an unpaid member of the scientific advisory board of AssurexHealth Inc. M. Landén declares that, over the past 36 months, he has received lecture honoraria from Lundbeck and served as scientific consultant for EPID Research Oy. No other equity ownership, profit-sharing agreements, royalties, or patent. P. Sullivan is on the Lundbeck advisory committee and is a Lundbeck grant recipient; he has served on the scientific advisory board for Pfizer, has received a consultation fee from Element Genomics, and a speaker reimbursement fee from Roche. J. Treasure has received an honorarium for participation in an EAP meeting and has received royalties from several books from Routledge, Wiley, and Oxford University press. T. Werge has acted as a lecturer and scientific advisor to H. Lundbeck A/S. L. Bierut, A. Goate, J. Rice, J.-C. Wang, and the spouse of N. Saccone are listed as inventors on Issued US Patent 8080,371, “Markers for Addiction” covering the use of certain SNPs in determining the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of addiction. N. Wodarz has received funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and Federal Ministry of Education and Research Germany (BMBF); he has received speaker’s honoraria and travel funds from Janssen-Cilag and Indivior. He took part in industry-sponsored multicenter randomized trials by D&A Pharma and Lundbeck. M. Ridinger received compensation from Lundbeck Switzerland and Lundbeck institute for advisory boards and expert meetings, and from Lundbeck and Lilly Suisse for workshops and presentations. K. Mann received honoraria from Lundbeck, Pfizer, Novartis, and AbbVie. K. Mann also received Honoraria (Advisory Board) from Lundbeck and Pfizer and speaker fees from Janssen Cilag. H. Kranzler has been an advisory board member, consultant, or continuing medical education speaker for Indivior, Lundbeck, and Otsuka. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology’s Alcohol Clinical Trials Initiative, which was sponsored in the past three years by AbbVie, Alkermes, Amygdala Neurosciences, Arbor Pharmaceuticals, Ethypharm, Indivior, Lilly, Lundbeck, Otsuka, and Pfizer. H. Kranzler and J. Gelernter are named as inventors on PCT patent application #15/878,640, entitled “Genotype-guided dosing of opioid agonists,” filed 24 January 2018. D.-S. Choi is a scientific advisory member of Peptron Inc. M. Frye has received grant support from Assurex Health, Mayo Foundation, Myriad, NIAAA, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and Pfizer; he has been a consultant for Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc., Janssen, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, Myriad, Neuralstem Inc., Otsuka American Pharmaceutical, Sunovion, and Teva Pharmaceuticals. H. de Wit has received support from Insys Therapeutics and Indivior for studies unrelated to this project, and she has consulted for Marinus and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, also unrelated to this project. T. Wall has previously received funds from ABMRF. J. Nurnberger is an investigator for Janssen and Assurex. M. Nöthen has received honoraria from the Lundbeck Foundation and the Robert Bosch Stiftung for membership on advisory boards. N. Scherbaum has received honoraria from Abbvie, Sanofi-Aventis, Reckitt Benckiser, Indivior, Lundbeck, and Janssen-Cilag for advisory board membership and the preparation of lectures, manuscripts, and educational materials. Since 2013, N. Scherbaum has also participated in clinical trials financed by Reckitt Benckiser and Indivior. W. Gäbel has received symposia support from Janssen-Cilag GmbH, Neuss, Lilly Deutschland GmbH, Bad Homburg, and Servier, Munich, and is a member of the Faculty of the Lundbeck International Neuroscience Foundation (LINF), Denmark. J. Kaprio has provided consultations on nicotine dependence for Pfizer (Finland) 2012–2015. In the past three years, L. Degenhardt has received investigator-initiated untied educational grants for studies of opioid medications in Australia from Indivior, Mundipharma, and Seqirus. B. Neale is a member of the scientific advisory board for Deep Genomics and has consulted for Camp4 Therapeutics Corporation, Merck & Co., and Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. A. Agrawal previously received peer-reviewed funding and travel reimbursement from ABMRF for unrelated research. All other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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