BMJ 1995;310:1330-1331 (20 May)

Letters

Mortality among twins

EDITOR,--Kaare Christensen and colleagues' study of the lifetime mortality of the 24% of Danish twins whom they were able to trace is offered as a challenge to the validity of the fetal origins hypothesis.1 The authors assume that if growth retardation in fetal life were associated with cardiovascular disease then twins, who have a lower birth weight than singleton infants even after adjustment for gestational age, would have relatively higher mortality. Thus their finding of a similar mortality in twins and singletons is taken as evidence against the fetal origins hypothesis. In the same manner the similar mortality of monozygotic and dizygotic twins is presented as a defence of criticisms that the twin method for estimating the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to disease may be invalid because of the differing prenatal environments of monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

Clearly, however, low birth weight does not have the same importance . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Mortality among twins after age 6: fetal origins hypothesis versus twin method
Kaare Christensen, James W Vaupel, Niels V Holm, and Anatoli I Yashin
BMJ 1995 310: 432-436. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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