Although previous research has shown a significant association between bulimia nervosa (BN) and drug use disorders (DUD), our knowledge of the underlying causes for this comorbidity remains limited. The purpose of the present study was to investigate possible influences on the comorbidity between BN and DUD. Subjects included 490 monozygotic and 354 dizygotic female twin pairs from the Virginia Adult Twin Study of Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to test where putative shared correlates mediated the comorbidity between BN and DUD. Bivariate twin analyses were used to investigate the contribution of genes and environment to the correlation between BN and DUD. Regression analyses indicated a lifetime history of major depression, the personality trait of neuroticism, and childhood sexual abuse significantly mediated the associated between BN and DUD (using BN as the independent variable), while major depression, conduct disorder diagnosis, and childhood sexual abuse most significantly impacted the association when DUD was used as the independent variable. Bivariate twin analyses indicated there is additive genetic and nonshared environmental overlap between BN and DUD with genetic and unique environmental correlations of 0.39 and 0.10, respectively. Results show the reason for the association between BN and DUD is due mostly to overlapping genes with a smaller contribution from nonshared environmental influences. Major depression, the personality trait of neuroticism, and childhood sexual abuse are likely important shared correlates between BN and DUD.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd_retro-1008 |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Creators | Baker, Jessica H. |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Retrospective ETD Collection |
| Rights | © The Author |
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