ArticleAge and ageing2018
Shared genetic influence on frailty and chronic widespread pain: a study from TwinsUK.
Article in Age and ageing, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 63 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessment of bidirectional relationships between sleep traits and frailty: A bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.Medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Health-related quality of life measures provide information on the contributors, components, and consequences of frailty in HIV: a systematic mapping review.Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation · 2024Pooled it
- Article
- Frailty and genetics: linking molecular aging to clinical vulnerability.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2026Review
- Genome-wide association study of frailty and integrative functional analysis to elucidate its relationship with aging.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Pain characteristics and incident frailty in community-dwelling older adults: dose-response relationships and sex differences in a longitudinal study on aging in Taiwan.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- From age to frailty: redefining chronic pain characterization.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2025Article
- Ultra-Processed Food and Frailty: Evidence from a Prospective Cohort Study and Implications for Future Research.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Mediation of the frailty index, the relationship between sleep duration and chronic pain in different body regions: insights from the CHARLS cross-sectional study.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2025Article
- Multi-Polygenic prediction of Frailty and its Trajectories highlights Chronic Pain, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Educational Attainment pathways.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Common inflammatory proteins linking frailty and area-level deprivation as key drivers of cardiovascular risk in women.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Lifestyle, environment and other major determinants of frailty in older adults: a population-based study from the UK Biobank.Biogerontology · 2025Article
- Genetic and phenotypic associations of frailty with cardiovascular indicators and behavioral characteristics.Journal of advanced research · 2025Article
- Identifying modifiable factors and their joint effect on frailty: a large population-based prospective cohort study.GeroScience · 2025Article
- The association between exercise, activities, and frailty in older Chinese adults: a cross-sectional study based on the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) data.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- A Genetic and Environmental Analysis of Inflammatory Factors in Chronic Widespread Pain Using the TwinsUK Cohort.Biomolecules · 2025Article
- Bidirectional genetic links between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and frailty: Genome-wide association study insights.PloS one · 2025Article
- Associations among frailty conditions and pain indicators: Data from 22 356 European older adults.Geriatrics & gerontology international · 2024Observational
- Article
- Unraveling the relationship between high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and frailty: evidence from longitudinal cohort study and genetic analysis.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Introduction: frailty is an increased vulnerability to adverse health outcomes, across multiple physiological systems, with both environmental and genetic drivers. The two most commonly used measures are Rockwood's frailty index (FI) and Fried's frailty phenotype (FP). Material and methods: the present study included 3626 individuals from the TwinsUK Adult Twin Registry. We used the classical twin model to determine whether FI and FP share the same latent aetiological factors. We also investigated the relationship between frailty and chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain (CWP), another holistic age-related condition with significant clinical impact. Results: FP and FI shared underlying genetic and environmental aetiology. CWP was associated with both frailty measures, and health deficits appeared to mediate the relationship between phenotypic frailty and pain. Latent genetic factors underpinning CWP were shared with frailty. While frailty was increased in the twins reporting pain, co-twin regression analysis indicated that the relationship between CWP and frailty is reduced after accounting for shared genetic and environmental factors. Conclusions: both measures of frailty tap the same root causes, thus this work helps unify frailty research. We confirmed a strong association between CWP and frailty, and showed a large and significant shared genetic aetiology of both phenomena. Our findings argue against pain being a significant causative factor in the development of frailty, favouring common causation. This study highlights the need to manage CWP in frail individuals and undertake a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in individuals presenting with CWP. Finally, the search for genetic factors underpinning CWP and frailty could be aided by integrating measures of pain and frailty.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.