Biology subjects

Ahlskog, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Ahlskog, R..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Associations between common genetic variants and income provide insights about the socioeconomic health gradient

We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on income among individuals of European descent and leveraged the results to investigate the socio-economic health gradient (N=668,288). We found 162 genomic loci associated with a common genetic factor underlying various income measures, all with small effect sizes. Our GWAS-derived polygenic index captures 1 - 4% of income variance, with only one-fourth attributed to direct genetic effects. A phenome-wide association study using this polygenic index showed reduced risks for a broad spectrum of diseases, including hypertension, obesity, type 2 diabetes, coronary atherosclerosis, depression, asthma, and back pain. The income factor showed a substantial genetic correlation (0.92, s.e. = .006) with educational attainment (EA). Accounting for EAs genetic overlap with income revealed that the remaining genetic signal for higher income related to better mental health but reduced physical health benefits and increased participation in risky behaviours such as drinking and smoking.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2022

Class background reverses the effect of a polygenic index of cognitive performance on economic ideology

Variation in political preferences is increasingly understood to stem from both environmental influences and genetics. Research has argued that a possible pathway for genetic effects on ideology is via cognitive performance, showing a genetic overlap between the traits. Yet, an unambiguous link between cognitive performance and economic policy preferences remains elusive, with results ranging from negative to positive effects on economic conservatism. In this study, I argue that this heterogeneity reflects an underlying gene-by-environment interaction. I depart from the assumption that cognitive performance, rather than being directly connected to a set of policy preferences, influences the capacity to correctly optimize those preferences. Combined with insights from standard models in political economics, this leads to the proposal that genetics associated with cognitive performance should cause more left-wing economic preferences if you grow up in relative poverty, but more right-wing preferences if you grow up in relative affluence. Utilizing variation in a polygenic index of cognitive performance within dizygotic twin pairs, coupled with unique register data on economic conditions for both the twins, their parents, and their childhood neighborhood, I show that the effect of the PGI on a finegrained measure of economic conservatism is zero on average, but indeed sizable and sign-discordant by class background. To my knowledge, this represents the first sign-discordant GxE finding for a socially relevant outcome, which has implications for future social science research using PGIs.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2021

Resource Profile and User Guide of the Polygenic Index Repository

Polygenic indexes (PGIs) are DNA-based predictors. Their value for research in many scientific disciplines is rapidly growing. As a resource for researchers, we used a consistent methodology to construct PGIs for 47 phenotypes in 11 datasets. To maximize the PGIs prediction accuracies, we constructed them using genome-wide association studies--some of which are novel--from multiple data sources, including 23andMe and UK Biobank. We present a theoretical framework to help interpret analyses involving PGIs. A key insight is that a PGI can be understood as an unbiased but noisy measure of a latent variable we call the "additive SNP factor." Regressions in which the true regressor is the additive SNP factor but the PGI is used as its proxy therefore suffer from errors-in-variables bias. We derive an estimator that corrects for the bias, illustrate the correction, and make a Python tool for implementing it publicly available.

genomics↗