© 1996 Oxford University Press
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Twenty-Four Year Mortality in World War II US Male Veteran Twins Discordant for Cigarette Smoking
* Health Sciences Program, SRI International Menlo Park, CA, USA.
Institute of Medicine, Medical Follow-up Agency, National Academy of Sciences USA.
BACKGROUND: This study was undertaken to test the constitutional hypothesis which attributes the association of tobacco smoking with morbidity and mortality to genetic predispositions to smoking and/or disease.
METHODS: Subjects were World War II veterans, born in the US between 1917 and 1927, and surveyed at mean age 47 for present and past smoking habits. Twenty-four year mortality follow-up data were available for 1515 male twin pairs discordant for lifelong cigarette smoking. Using the first or only death of a smoking-discordant pair, 24-year relative risks of mortality were calculated by zygosity, cause of death, amount smoked, and age at death.
RESULTS: We found that active smokers at baseline, regardless of zygosity, had a higher risk of death than their co-twins who had never smoked or quit smoking (monozygotic pairs: relative risk (RR) = 2.5; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.3–6.1 and RR = 1.7; 95% CI : 1.2–2.5; dizygotic pairs: RR = 2.4; 95% CI : 1.4–3.8 and RR = 2.0; 95% CI : 1.7–3.3). The elevated risk of death among smokers was due to deaths from lung cancer (monozygotic pairs: RR = 5.0; 95% CI : 2.6– 15.0; dizygotic pairs: RR = 11 0; 95% CI : 4.3–45.0) or deaths from cardiovascular diseases (monozygotic pairs:RR = 3.9; 95% CI : 1.95–11.5; dizygotic pairs RR = 3.9; 95% CI : 1.9–11.5; dizygotic pairs: RR = 2.8; 95% CI : 1.7–4.9). Apart from these findings the relationship of smoking with all-cause mortality was stronger for earlier/younger deaths and for heavy to moderate smoking.
CONCLUSIONS: The present results, from the largest and longest-studied series of smoking-discordant twins negate the constitutional hypothesis that genetic or early shared familial influences underlie the significant association between tobacco smoking and premature mortality.
Revised 1 October 1995
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