Genetic and behavioral risk factors for self-reported joint pain among a population-based sample of Swedish twins

Self-reported joint pain, a typical manifestation of osteoarthritis, was ex amined using 335 twin pairs from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging t o estimate relative genetic and environmental influences on self-reported j oint pain and to examine the relationships between joint pain, health behav ior, and psychological variables. Findings suggest that family resemblance for self-reported joint pain represents similar environments more than gene tic similarity. Data from the early 1970s, including exercise, physical act ivity at work, obesity, and neuroticism, were used to predict joint pain in 1993. For men, moderate amounts of exercise decreased the likelihood of jo int pain, but strenuous amounts of physical activity in the workplace had t he opposite effect. For women, exercise and physical activity were not sign ificant predictors, but past obesity and higher levels of neuroticism incre ased the likelihood of reporting joint pain in 1993.