School of Psychological Sciences and Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Int J Eat Disord. 2024 May;57(5):1224-1233. doi: 10.1002/eat.24179. Epub 2024 Feb 29.
Reward-based eating drives are putative mechanisms of uncontrolled eating implicated in obesity and disordered eating (e.g., binge eating). Uncovering the genetic and environmental contributions to reward-related eating, and their genetic correlation with BMI, could shed light on key mechanisms underlying eating and weight-related disorders.
We conducted a classical twin study to examine how much variance in uncontrolled eating phenotypes and body mass index (BMI) was explained by genetic factors, and the extent that these phenotypes shared common genetic factors. 353 monozygotic twins and 128 dizygotic twins completed the Reward-based Eating Drive 13 scale, which measures three distinct uncontrolled eating phenotypes (loss of control over eating, preoccupation with thoughts about food, and lack of satiety), and a demographic questionnaire which included height and weight for BMI calculation. We estimated additive genetic (A), common environmental (C), and unique environmental (E) factors for each phenotype, as well as their genetic correlations, with a multivariate ACE model. A common pathway model also estimated whether genetic variance in the uncontrolled eating phenotypes was better explained by a common latent uncontrolled eating factor.
There were moderate genetic correlations between uncontrolled eating phenotypes and BMI (.26-.41). Variance from the uncontrolled eating phenotypes was also best explained by a common latent uncontrolled eating factor that was explained by additive genetic factors (52%).
These results suggest that uncontrolled eating phenotypes are heritable traits that also share genetic variance with BMI. This has implications for understanding the cognitive mechanisms that underpin obesity and disordered eating.
Our study clarifies the degree to which uncontrolled eating phenotypes and BMI are influenced by shared genetics and shows that vulnerability to uncontrolled eating traits is impacted by common genetic factors.
基于奖励的进食驱动力是与肥胖和饮食失调（例如暴食）相关的不受控制进食的潜在机制。揭示与奖励相关的进食以及与 BMI 的遗传相关性，有助于阐明与饮食和体重相关的障碍的关键机制。
我们进行了一项经典的双胞胎研究，以检验不受控制的进食表型和体重指数（BMI）的遗传因素解释了多少差异，以及这些表型共同具有的遗传因素的程度。353 对同卵双胞胎和 128 对异卵双胞胎完成了基于奖励的进食驱力 13 量表，该量表测量了三种不同的不受控制的进食表型（进食失控、对食物的想法着迷和缺乏饱腹感），以及一个包括身高和体重用于 BMI 计算的人口统计学问卷。我们使用多变量 ACE 模型估计了每种表型的加性遗传（A）、共同环境（C）和独特环境（E）因素，以及它们的遗传相关性。一个共同途径模型还估计了不受控制的进食表型的遗传方差是否可以通过一个共同的潜在不受控制的进食因素更好地解释。
不受控制的进食表型与 BMI 之间存在中度遗传相关性（.26-.41）。不受控制的进食表型的变异也可以通过一个共同的潜在不受控制的进食因素来更好地解释，这个因素是由加性遗传因素解释的（52%）。
这些结果表明，不受控制的进食表型是遗传的特征，它们与 BMI 也具有遗传变异性。这对理解支持肥胖和饮食失调的认知机制具有重要意义。
我们的研究阐明了不受控制的进食表型和 BMI 受共同遗传影响的程度，并表明不受控制的进食特征的脆弱性受到共同遗传因素的影响。
