"Socio-demographic factors" may in fact be genetic for two reasons. 1) Social status is largely transmitted within a family, and familial transmission is in part an environnemental sensu lato, in part genetic. 2) Geographical origin, particularly in Southern Italy, is noted as a "socio-demographic factor"; it may, in fact, act through a genetic founder effect, and the origin in Calabria of the largest documented Alzheimer kindred not be a coincidence (BRUNI A.C, MONTESI M.P., SALMON D., GEI G., PERRE J., EL HACHIMI K.H., FONCIN J.-F. : Alzheimer's disease: a model from the quantitative study of a large kindred. J. Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology 1992 5 126-131).
Article Influence of socio-demographic features and apolipoprotein E...
An interesting discussion about the interactions between genetics, early environment and selection due to social mobility in this paper:
Mackenbach JP. New trends in health inequalities research: now it’s personal. Lancet. 2010;376:854-5.
Kind Jean-Francois Foncin
thank you of the interesting question.
After a discussion with Antonio Guaita & Coll., we could answer as following: we agree that almost all demographic features are also genetic (gender, for instance). The influence of being born in Southern of Italy was independent of gender and in our population we do not have individuals with inherited disease or true familial transmission. In the paper we implicitly suggested the possibility of a genetic difference of people from Southern Italy, citing the studies that showed higher prevalence of dementia in those who lived (and were born) in Southern Italy communities (Azzimondi, D’Alessandro, Pandolfo, & Feruglio, 1998; Prencipe et al., 1996) . On the other hand we cannot overlook the social stress from migration.
Mauro Colombo
PS: we are sharing common interests ["One degenerative diagnosis per patient ?"] & a common friend [Amalia Bruni]; best wishes, Mauro
Migration is a particularly interesting example where dissection of the genetic and environmental contributions should be possible. In my field, rates of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are known to be raised amongst certain migrant groups and their descendants living in Western Europe (and elsewhere). In the UK, the largest relative risks are found amongst people of black Caribbean and black African origin, beginning in first generation migrants, largely from the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa in the 1960s. Elevated risk persists amongst UK-born children and grandchildren. We know this is not explained entirely by socio-economic status [1]. Further, rates of these psychotic disorder are not elevated amongst the Caribbean population in the Caribbean (they are in fact similar to the background incidence rate in the UK) [2-4] and rates do not appear to be elevated in these groups as a result of selection issues [5] (i.e. a tendency for people with genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia to be more likely to migrate). Therefore the experiences of migration and minority status suggest a particularly social origin to elevated risk, which might co-participate with genetic vulnerability. The findings on ethnic density (where neighbhourhood ethnic composition modify individual risk of schizophrenia amongst different ethnic groups i.e. [6] cannot readily be explained by genetic selection effects either.
Hope this helps.
References (B J Psych heavy - sorry! - just a coincidence)
1. Kirkbride et al. 2008. Br J Psych. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18700213
2. Mahy et al. 1999. Br J Psych. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=10621765
3. Bhugra et al. 1996. Br J Psych. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8932887
4. Hickling et al. 1995. Br J Psych. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7582668
5. Selten et al. 2002. Am J Psychiatry. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11925311
6. Kirkbride et al. Schiz Bull. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23236081
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18700213
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=10621765
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8932887
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7582668
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11925311
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23236081
Article Psychoses, ethnicity and socio-economic status
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