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Communication Between Identical Twins: Health Behavior and Social Factors Are Associated With Longevity That Is Greater Among Identical Than Fraternal U.S. World War II Veteran Twins

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley.

Background. Longevity is greater for identical twins than for fraternal twins from the same population. Factors that are explanatory for this difference are not known.

Methods. Multivariate survival analysis is applied to current mortality data for 26,974 male twins with known zygosities of the National Academy of Science–National Research Council World War II Veteran Twins Registry, and this analysis is applied to their health and social behavior and personal histories, as collected from two survey questionnaires distributed in 1967 and 1983 (with 14,300 and 9475 responses received, respectively). To explain this difference in longevity, social, health, and personal history factors are evaluated for associations with longevity.

Results. Survival functions of identical and fraternal twins differed significantly (). Median lifetimes were 82 years for identical and 80.5 years for fraternal twins. The correlation between lifetimes of identical twin partners was greater than that of fraternal twins. For identical but not for fraternal twins, the risk of mortality was significantly lower for twin partners who communicated 1 or more times per month, compared with those who communicated less frequently (relative risk.80, 95% confidence interval 0.68–0.94, , with control for other factors associated with longevity: smoking, exercise, a current marriage, living with both parents until age 15 or older, and having a live co-twin). Distributions of communication, exercise level, and smoking prevalence were more beneficial with regard to longevity for identical than for fraternal twins as a group.

Conclusions. Frequent communication between identical but not fraternal twin partners, and both level of exercise and prevalence of smoking, distributed more beneficially in terms of longevity for identical compared with fraternal twins, are explanatory for the greater longevity of identical than fraternal twins.