EMPIRICAL ARTICLE Does Shared Genetic Risk Contribute to the Co-occurrence of Eating Disorders and Suicidality?

Objective: There is a high level of co-occurrence of suicidality with eating dis-orders (EDs) but the reason for this is unknown. To test the hypothesis that sui-cidality and EDs share genetic risk con-tributing to the expression of both phenotypes. Method: Female twins (N5 1,002) from the Australian Twin Registry, aged 28–40 years, were interviewed with diagnostic interviews. Lifetime diagnostic informa-tion relating to eating disorders [anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder, and purging disorder (PD)], suicidality (ranging transitory thoughts to suicide attempts), and major depression. Results: Any suicidal thoughts were reported by 24 % of the sample, but prev-alence of lifetime suicidality among female twins with EDs was much higher (43%), presence of an ED diagnosis more than doubling likelihood of suicidalit