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Does smoking among friends explain apparent genetic effects on current smoking in adolescence and young adulthood?

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journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-04, 11:09 authored by Vicki WhiteVicki White, GB Byrnes, B Webster, JL Hopper
We used data from a prospective cohort study of twins to investigate the influence of unmeasured genetic and measured and unmeasured environmental factors on the smoking behaviour of adolescents and young adults. Twins were surveyed in 1988 (aged 11-18 years), 1991, 1996 and 2004 with data from 1409, 1121, 732 and 758 pairs analysed from each survey wave, respectively. Questionnaires assessed the smoking behaviour of twins and the perceived smoking behaviour of friends and parents. Using a novel logistic regression analysis, we simultaneously modelled individual risk and excess concordance for current smoking as a function of zygosity, survey wave, parental smoking and peer smoking. Being concordant for having peers who smoked was a predictor of concordance for current smoking (P<0.001). After adjusting for peer smoking, monozygotic (MZ) pairs were no more alike than dizygotic pairs for current smoking at waves 2, 3 and 4. Genetic explanations are not needed to explain the greater concordance for current smoking among adult MZ pairs. However, if they are invoked, the role of genes may be due to indirect effects acting through the social environment. Smoking prevention efforts may benefit more by targeting social factors than attempting to identify genetic factors associated with smoking.

History

Journal

British journal of cancer

Volume

98

Pagination

1475-1481

Location

London, Eng.

Open access

  • Yes

ISSN

0007-0920

eISSN

1532-1827

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2008, Cancer Research UK

Issue

8

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group