Using our mobile app? Be sure to check for any new app updates to receive any enhancements.
Logo

Get Healthy!

Loss of a Twin Linked to Risk for Mental Illness
  • Steven Reinberg
  • Posted July 17, 2020

Loss of a Twin Linked to Risk for Mental Illness

The death of a twin, especially earlier in life, leaves the surviving twin at risk for psychiatric problems, a new study finds.

"Losing a co-twin by death may be a particularly devastating life stressor with considerable health implications for surviving twins, yet there have been few studies on this type of bereavement," said lead author Dr. Huan Song. She is a senior researcher at Sichuan University in China and Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Using Swedish data, Song's team found people who had experienced the death of a co-twin between 1973 and 2013. The investigators compared psychiatric diagnoses in these twins with their non-twin siblings and with more than 22,600 people whose twin was still alive.

"We showed that the risk of being diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder increased by 55% to 65% after the death of a co-twin," Song said. The risk was greatest where the co-twin died before adulthood, and the diagnoses included psychotic disorders, stress-related disorders and mood disorders.

Psychiatric diagnoses were most likely to come within a month after a twin's death -- when the risk was seven times higher. The added risk lasted for more than 10 years, according to the report published online July 15 in the journal e-Life.

The risk was especially high for identical twins. These twins had 2.5 times the risk, compared with non-twin siblings.

Surviving fraternal (non-identical) twins had about a 30% higher risk of psychiatric problems after the death of their twin, the researchers said in a journal news release.

According to senior study author Unnur Valdimarsdóttir, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, "Our results suggest that both genetic similarity and early-life attachment may contribute to the subsequent risk of psychiatric disorders among surviving twins after the death of their co-twin."

More information

For more on coping with grief, head to the American Academy of Family Physicians.

SOURCE: e-Life, news release, July 15, 2020
HealthDay
Health News is provided as a service to The Medicine Shoppe site users by HealthDay. The Medicine Shoppe nor its employees, agents, or contractors, review, control, or take responsibility for the content of these articles. Please seek medical advice directly from your pharmacist or physician.
Copyright © 2024 HealthDay All Rights Reserved.