Abstract Objective To study the relation between measures of personality and risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer in a large cohort. Design Follow-up of population based cohort. Setting ...Heidelberg, Germany. Participants 5114 women and men aged 40-65 in 1992-5. Main outcome measures Psychological traits assessed by several standardised personality questionnaires in 1992-5, related to cause of death (to 2002-3) or reported incidence of cardiovascular diseases and cancer (validated by treating doctors). Relative risks (and 95% confidence intervals) for combined morbidity and mortality according to five important personality traits were estimated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models. Results During median follow-up of 8.5 years, 257 participants died and 72 were diagnosed with a heart attack, 62 with stroke, and 240 with cancer (morbidity and mortality combined). A high internal locus of control over disease was associated with a decreased risk of myocardial infarction (adjusted relative risk for an increase of 1 SD = 0.75; 95% confidence interval 0.58 to 0.96). An increase of 1 SD in time urgency was associated with a decreased risk of cancer (adjusted relative risk 0.83; 0.73 to 0.95). Other major personality traits—anger control, psychoticism, and symptoms of depression—were not consistently associated with myocardial infarction, stroke, or cancer. Conclusion Internal locus of control over disease and time urgency seem to be associated with reduced risk for common chronic diseases, probably by affecting unmeasured health related behaviour. The other personality traits assessed had no major impact on cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Purpose First, we sought to estimate the magnitude of the cross-sectional associations between overweight/obesity and asthma stratified by gender and by self-reported hay fever and second we sought ...to assess both directions of causality in longitudinal analyses. Methods We used cross-sectional and longitudinal data from a population-based cohort study (n = 5114, ages 40–65 at baseline). After 8.5 years, 4010 adults were followed-up by questionnaires. Self-reported height and weight were used to calculate body mass index categories. Multivariate adjusted prevalence ratios (PRs), relative risks (RRs), and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated using Poisson regression. Results In cross-sectional analyses, adjusted PRs were comparable for overweight women and men but differed between obese women and men (PR 1.93, 95% CI 1.19–3.14 and PR 0.98, 95% CI 0.56–1.72). PRs were similar when stratified by hay fever. Longitudinal analyses suggested that overweight/obesity did not increase asthma risk substantially (RR 1.02, 95% CI 0.50–2.06), but a relation between asthma and subsequent weight gain could not be excluded (RR 1.34, 95% CI 1.01–1.77). Conclusions The prevalence of asthma is almost twice as high in obese versus normal weight women, but not in obese men. The association between overweight/obesity and asthma does not vary by hay fever. A causal relationship between asthma and incident weight gain cannot be excluded.
Emotional intelligence (EI) has often been criticized to measure nothing more than intelligence and personality. Recent studies have shown that EI has an incremental validity concerning life outcome ...criteria, but inconsistent results have been found for achievement criteria. Two studies were conducted to examine if EI could predict achievement above and beyond intelligence and conscientiousness. In the first study, a sample of students (
N
=
227, age range
=
17–20 years,
M
=
17.02, S.D.
=
0.77) were recruited and school performance served as an achievement criteria. In the second study, education, social status of profession, and average income were taken as vocational performance criteria and examined in a sample of employed adults (
N
=
207, age range
=
27–43 years,
M
=
33.82, S.D.
=
3.96) from the local community. By means of structural equation modelling, the data of both samples were separately tested for sex differences as well as for a validity increment of EI. In both samples, EI could not explain any variance in the criteria beyond psychometric intelligence and conscientiousness. The tests for sex differences only showed sex-specific convergent validity of EI in the student sample, providing useful information on the developmental aspect of EI.
HeiDE is a longitudinal population‐based study that started in the 1990s and, at baseline, assessed an array of health‐related personality questionnaires in 5133 individuals. Five latent personality ...dimensions (The Heidelberg Five) were identified and interpreted as Emotional Lability (ELAB), Lack of Behavioral Control (LBCN), Type A Behavior (TYAB), Locus of Control over Disease (LOCC), and Psychoticism (PSYC). At follow‐up, 3268 HeiDE participants (post‐QC) were genotyped on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays. To further characterize The Heidelberg Five, we analyzed genomic underpinnings, their relations to the genetic basis of the Big Five trait Neuroticism, and longitudinal associations with psychiatric symptoms at follow‐up. SNP‐based heritability was significant for ELAB (34%) and LBCN (29%). A genome‐wide association study for each personality dimension was conducted; only the phenotype PSYC yielded a genome‐wide significant finding (p < 5 × 10−8, top SNP rs138223660). Gene‐based analyses identified significant findings for ELAB, TYAB, and PSYC. Polygenic risk scores for Neuroticism were only associated with ELAB. Each of The Heidelberg Five was related to depressive symptoms at follow‐up. ELAB, LBCN, and PSYC were also associated with lifetime anxiety symptoms. These results highlight the clinical importance of health‐related personality traits and identify LBCN as a heritable “executive function” personality trait.
The HeiDE study is an ongoing longitudinal investigation that started in the 1990s and, at baseline, assessed an array of personality tests in 5,114 individuals. Principal components factor analysis ...was used to identify five latent personality dimensions (“The Heidelberg Five”), interpreted as emotional lability (ELAB), lack of behavioral control (LBCN), type-A-behavior (TYAB), locus of control over disease (LOCC), and psychoticism (PSYC). At follow-up, a subset of responding participants (n=2,734) were genotyped using Illumina PsychChip arrays. We conducted five initial GWAS, analyzing common genetic variants underlying the previously identified orthogonal personality dimensions with factor scores as phenotypes. For ELAB, we observed a locus that was genome-wide significant (rs79136259; p=8.2×10-9). Recently, genome-wide data from a second sample of the HeiDE study became available and we have now jointly analyzed both samples and combined results using meta-analysis (n=2,387 and n=881; post-QC).
In both samples, we imputed common variants (MAF≥0.01) using the 1000 Genomes Phase 3 reference panel. Data were analyzed using PLINK 1.07 (http://zzz.bwh.harvard.edu/plink/) with sex, age and the first four ancestry principal components as covariates. Fixed-effects meta-analysis was conducted using METAL (http://genome.sph.umich.edu/wiki/METAL). SNP-based heritability estimates and genetic correlations were calculated using GCTA (http://cnsgenomics.com/software/gcta/index.html), jointly on all available individuals.
The association of SNP rs79136259 with ELAB, discovered in the initial HeiDE sample, did not replicate in the second sample. Association strength in the fixed-effects meta-analysis of both samples decreased to a nominal level (p=1.3×10-4). For TYAB, an InDel variant on chromosome 8 (rs58535027, p=1.1×10-8) that was not significant in either sample alone reached genome-wide significance in the meta-analysis. No genome-wide significant associations were found in the meta-analyses for LBCN, LOCC or PSYC.
SNP-based heritability estimates of the joint genotype data are: 28.8% (ELAB; p=0.014), 27.3% (LBCN; p=0.019), 8.4% (TYAB; p=0.262), 8.4% (LOCC; p=0.269) and 23.6% (PSYC; p=0.028). Genetic correlations between The Heidelberg Five will be presented at the meeting.
The HeiDE cohort represents a unique opportunity to study the association of personality, genetics, and longitudinally defined phenotypes. Using an extended sample, we did not find evidence for the previously reported association of rs79136259 with ELAB but found evidence for a genetic variant influencing TYAB. Significant SNP-based heritability estimates of The Heidelberg Five demonstrate biological validity of some latent personality dimensions.
HeiDE is a longitudinal population‐based study that started in the 1990s and, at baseline, assessed an array of health‐related personality questionnaires in 5133 individuals. Five latent personality ...dimensions (The Heidelberg Five) were identified and interpreted as Emotional Lability (ELAB), Lack of Behavioral Control (LBCN), Type A Behavior (TYAB), Locus of Control over Disease (LOCC), and Psychoticism (PSYC). At follow‐up, 3268 HeiDE participants (post‐QC) were genotyped on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays. To further characterize The Heidelberg Five, we analyzed genomic underpinnings, their relations to the genetic basis of the Big Five trait Neuroticism, and longitudinal associations with psychiatric symptoms at follow‐up. SNP‐based heritability was significant for ELAB (34%) and LBCN (29%). A genome‐wide association study for each personality dimension was conducted; only the phenotype PSYC yielded a genome‐wide significant finding (p < 5 × 10−8, top SNP rs138223660). Gene‐based analyses identified significant findings for ELAB, TYAB, and PSYC. Polygenic risk scores for Neuroticism were only associated with ELAB. Each of The Heidelberg Five was related to depressive symptoms at follow‐up. ELAB, LBCN, and PSYC were also associated with lifetime anxiety symptoms. These results highlight the clinical importance of health‐related personality traits and identify LBCN as a heritable “executive function” personality trait.
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