Association of Current and Former Smoking With Body Mass Index: a Study of Smoking Discordant Twin Pairs From 21 Twin Cohorts
View/ Open
Date
2018-07-12Author
Piirtola, Maarit
Jelenkovic Moreno, Aline
Latvala, Antti
Sund, Reijo
Honda, Chika
Inui, Fujio
Watanabe, Mikio
Tomizawa, Rie
Iwatani, Yoshinori
Ordoñana Martín, Juan Ramón
Sánchez Romera, Juan Francisco
Colodro Conde, Lucia
Tarnoki, Adam D.
Tarnoki, David L.
Martin, Nicholas G.
Montgomery, Grant W.
Medland, Sarah E.
Rasmussen, Finn
Tynelius, Per
Tan, Qihua
Zhang, Dongfeng
Pang, Zengchang
Stazi, Maria A.
Fagnani, Corrado
Brescianini, Sonia
Busjahn, Andreas
Harris, Jennifer R.
Brandt, Ingunn
Nilsen, Thomas Sevenius
Cutler, Tessa L.
Hopper, John L.
Corley, Robin P.
Huibregtse, Brooke M.
Sung, Joohon
Kim, Jina
Lee, Jooyeon
Lee, Sooji
Gatz, Margaret
Butler, David A.
Franz, Carol E.
Kremen, William S.
Lyons, Michael J.
Magnusson, Patrik K. E.
Pedersen, Nancy L.
Aslan, Anna K. Dahl
Oncel, Sevgi Y.
Aliev, Fazil
Derom, Catherine A.
Vlietinck, Robert F.
Loos, Ruth J. F.
Silberg, Judy L.
Maes, Hermine H.
Boomsma, Dorret I.
Sorensen, Thorkild I. A.
Korhonen, Tellervo
Kaprio, Jaakko
Silventoinen, Karri
Metadata
Show full item record
PloS One 13 : (2018) // Article ID e0200140
Abstract
Background
Smokers tend to weigh less than never smokers, while successful quitting leads to an increase in body weight. Because smokers and non-smokers may differ in genetic and environmental family background, we analysed data from twin pairs in which the co-twins differed by their smoking behaviour to evaluate if the association between smoking and body mass index (BMI) remains after controlling for family background.
Methods and findings
The international CODATwins database includes information on smoking and BMI measured between 1960 and 2012 from 156,593 twin individuals 18-69 years of age. Individual-based data (230,378 measurements) and data of smoking discordant twin pairs (altogether 30,014 pairwise measurements, 36% from monozygotic [MZ] pairs) were analysed with linear fixed-effects regression models by 10-year periods. In MZ pairs, the smoking co-twin had, on average, 0.57 kg/m(2) lower BMI in men (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.49, 0.70) and 0.65 kg/m(2) lower BMI in women (95% CI: 0.52, 0.79) than the never smoking co-twin. Former smokers had 0.70 kg/m(2) higher BMI among men (95% CI: 0.63, 0.78) and 0.62 kg/m(2) higher BMI among women (95% CI: 0.51, 0.73) than their currently smoking MZ cotwins. Little difference in BMI was observed when comparing former smoking co-twins with their never smoking MZ co-twins (0.13 kg/m(2), 95% CI 0.04, 0.23 among men; -0.04 kg/m(2), 95% CI -0.16, 0.09 among women). The associations were similar within dizygotic pairs and when analysing twins as individuals. The observed series of cross-sectional associations were independent of sex, age, and measurement decade.
Conclusions
Smoking is associated with lower BMI and smoking cessation with higher BMI. However, the net effect of smoking and subsequent cessation on weight development appears to be minimal, i.e. never more than an average of 0.7 kg/m(2).
Collections
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright: © 2018 Piirtola et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)