Fini Schulsinger

An adoption study of human obesity.

We examined the contributions of genetic factors and the family environment to human fatness in a sample of 540 adult Danish adoptees who were selected from a population of 3580 and divided into four weight classes: thin, median weight, overweight, and obese. There was a strong relation between the weight class of the adoptees and the body-mass index of their biologic parents - for the mothers, P less than 0.0001; for the fathers, P less than 0.02. There was no relation between the weight class of the adoptees and the body-mass index of their adoptive parents. Cumulative distributions of the body-mass index of parents showed similar results; there was a strong relation between the body-mass index of biologic parents and adoptee weight class and no relation between the index of adoptive parents and adoptee weight class. Furthermore, the relation between biologic parents and adoptees was not confined to the obesity weight class, but was present across the whole range of body fatness - from very thin to very fat. We conclude that genetic influences have an important role in determining human fatness in adults, whereas the family environment alone has no apparent effect.

Some premorbid characteristics related to breakdown in children with schizophrenic mothers

SCHIZOPHRENICS excite a good deal of behavioral research, the goal of much of this research is to produce information concerning the etiology of schizophrenia. It may be difficult, however, to isolate such etiological factors through studies carried out with individuals who have lived through the process of becoming and being schizophrenic. The behavior of these individuals may be markedly altered in response to correlates of the illness such as educational, economic and social failure, prehospital, hospital and post-hospital drug regimens, bachelorhood, long term institutionalization, chronic illness and sheer misery. In research with non-schizophrenics, these same factors have been shown to measurably affect behavioral research results. If researchers used control groups which were equated with their schizophrenic groups for all of these correlates of schizophrenia, then any observed differences could reasonably be ascribed to the variable of schizophrenia. But such control groups are apparently not readily available. Consequently, in comparisons of normals and schizophrenics, it is often difficult to judge what portion of the reported differences have unique relevance to schizophrenia. If, for example, comparisons of non-psychiatric prisoners and normals produced identical differences we might tend to attribute the schizophrenicnormal differences to the effects of institutionalization rather than some intrinsic quality of the schizophrenic. In view of these considerations we decided to attempt to study the schizophrenic before he became ill. We turned to the study of young, high-risk populations (children with schizophrenic mothers). There are certain advantages in examining such subjects:

IQ as a Protective Factor for Subjects at High Risk for Antisocial Behavior

The current project compared the characteristics of four groups of men from a Danish birth cohort: (a) those at high risk for serious criminal involvement (with severely criminal fathers) who nevertheless succeeded in avoiding criminal behavior; (b) those at high risk who evidenced serious criminal behavior; (c) those at low risk (with noncriminal fathers) who did not evidence criminal behavior; and (d) those at low risk who nevertheless evidenced serious criminal behavior. We examined the possible role of high IQ (as tested by an abbreviated version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) in protecting high-risk men from criminal involvement. As hypothesized, the first group evidenced a mean IQ score that was significantly higher than that of the other risk groups. The results are interpreted in terms of the reinforcing effect of success in the school system.

Alcoholism and the hyperactive child syndrome.

Comparisons were made between alcoholics and nonalcoholics in a sample of Danish adoptees (mean age 30) and it was found that the alcoholics, as children, were more often hyperactive, truant, antisocial, shy, aggressive, disobedient, and friendless. The literature suggesting a relationship between the hyperactive child syndrome and subsequent alcoholism is reviewed, as well as a possible relationship between these disorders and antisocial behavior. The adoptive parent of the two groups did not differ with regard to socioeconomic class, psychopathology, or drinking histories. However, 10 of the 14 alcoholics had biological parents who were alcoholic, with no known alcoholism among the biological parents of the nonalcoholics. As adults, the alcoholics differed from the nonalcoholics only with regard to drinking history, use of drugs, and overt expression of anger.

Genetics of obesity in adult adoptees and their biological siblings.

An adoption study of genetic effects on obesity in adulthood was carried out in which adoptees separated from their natural parents very early in life were compared with their biological full and half siblings reared by their natural parents. The adoptees represented four groups who by sampling from a larger population were categorised as either thin, medium weight, overweight, or obese. Weight and height were obtained for 115 full siblings of 57 adoptees and for 850 half siblings of 341 adoptees. In full siblings body mass index (kg/m2) significantly increased with weight of the adoptees. Body mass index of the half siblings showed a steady but weaker increase across the four weight groups of adoptees. There were no significant interactions with sex of the adoptees, sex of the siblings, or (for the half siblings) sex of the common parent. In contrast with the findings in half siblings and (previously) the natural parents there was a striking, significant increase in body mass index between full siblings of overweight and obese adoptees. The degree of fatness in adults living in the same environment appears to be influenced by genetic factors independent of sex, which may include polygenic as well as major gene effects on obesity.

Schizophrenics' offspring reared in adoptive homes

THIS is the first of a projected series of reports on what Dr. Kety, Dr. Wender and I call the Adoptees Study.l The one that Dr. Kety presented we call the Extended Family Study and the one that Dr. Wender presented we call the Adoptive Parents Study. The names may help to distinguish the studies in future discussions of them. This is a preliminary as well as a first report, since we are still very much in the midst of our extensive research activities. We will be finding and examining subjects for at least another year. In June 1967 we began the third year of this project. The reader will observe a strong resemblance, as well as important differences in conception and method, between the Adoptees Study and the study reported by Heston. We want to point out that our study was conceived and planned years before we learned of Heston’s remarkable feat, and it was well under way for some time before Heston’s report appeared. Although all our studies attempt to assess the relative contributions of heredity and environment to schizophrenia, the major focus of the Adoptees Study is somewhat different. Here we are trying to obtain evidence that a diathesis-stress theory of schizophrenia is correct. What we would like to do is to detect and describe some behavioral and psychological aspects of that inherited diathesis. Paul Meehl would call it the “schizotype”, which is a perfectly good name for it.

MMPI variables predictive of schizophrenia in the Copenhagen High-Risk Project: a 25-year follow-up

Moldin et al. (1) have identified a cluster of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scales that discriminate adolescents at risk for schizophrenia from those not at risk. The present study examines how well Moldins scales predict schizophrenic decompensation in a sample of 207 Danish adolescents at high genetic risk for schizophrenia. Subjects were assessed using a modified, 304‐item MMPI in 1962 (mean age=15.1 years) and diagnosed in 10‐year and 25‐year follow‐ups. Premorbidly. schizophrenic subjects (n = 31) scorcd higher than subjects with no mental illness on the frequency (F) and psychoticism (PSY) scales. When paranoid and non‐paranoid preschizophrenics were separated, three scales (F, Pz (paranoid schizophrenia) and PSY) significantly discriminated paranoid preschizophrenics. Discriminant function analyses confirmed these results. It is concluded that the MMPI may be useful for identifying schizophrenia premorbidly.

Perception of parent–child relationships in high-risk families, and adult schizophrenia outcome of offspring

The current investigation examines perceived family relationships prior to the onset of psychopathology in a sample at high-risk for schizophrenia. Previous research suggests that environmental factors, such as family relationships, may contribute to later schizophrenia in high-risk individuals. This investigation extends work by Burman et al. [Burman B, Mednick SA, Machon RA, Parnas J, Schulsinger F. Children at high risk for schizophrenia: parent and offspring perceptions of family relationships. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1987;96(4):364-6] by examining high-risk subjects from a longitudinal data set who had not yet decompensated to schizophrenia at the time of the Burman study. Findings suggest that having positive relationships with both the mother and father may be protective against schizophrenia among HR children.

Heredity-environment interaction and schizophrenia

The longitudinal prospective study of populations at risk is considered a powerful strategy towards disentangling hereditary and environmental factors. Data from Mednick and Schulsingers 1962 study in Copenhagen, on children at high-risk for schizophrenia are used as an illustration. Pregnancy and birth complications, as well as institutional rearing in early childhood contributes towards schizophrenia in the risk children, but not in the low-risk controls. Risk children with an outcome of schizotypal personality disorder were hardly exposed to perinatal complications. To some extent, schizophrenia may be considered as a complicated form of schizotypal personality disorder, which again may be a genetically transmitted condition.

A Danish Prospective Study of Young Males at High Risk for Alcoholism

Alcoholism represents one of the most serious health problems in modern industrialized society. In spite of persistent research efforts and preventive initiatives the main problems concerning etiology remain unsolved, while the consumption of alcohol in a society such as Denmark still increases.