Liselotte Vogdrup Petersen

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Aarhus University

Eating disorders (EDs) commonly co-occur with other psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, the pattern of family history and genetic overlap among them requires clarification. This study investigated the diagnostic, familial, and genetic ass...

Objective Anxiety and depression symptoms are common in individuals with eating disorders. To study these co‐occurrences, we need high‐quality self‐report questionnaires. The 19‐item self‐rated Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale for Affective Syndromes (CPRS‐S‐A) is not validated in patients with eating disorders. We tested its factor st...

Cognitive functions of individuals with psychiatric disorders differ from that of the general population. Such cognitive differences often manifest early in life as differential school performance and have a strong genetic basis. Here we measured genetic predictors of school performance in 30,982 individuals in English, Danish and mathematics via a...

Objective Increasing rates of Caesarean sections has led to concerns on long-term effects on the offspring’s health and it has been hypothesized that Caesarean section induced differences in the child’s microbiota could potentially increase the risk of mental disorders. Methods N ationwide Danish cohort study of 2,196,687 births between 1980 and 2...

Objective: To determine the association between continued antidepressant use in pregnancy and postpartum psychiatric visits for eating (ED) or mood/anxiety disorders in women with preexisting ED. Method: Using Danish health registry data (1998-2015), we identified 3529 pregnancies in women with ED prepregnancy: (i) 564 with continued antidepress...

BACKGROUND Asthma and mental disorders frequently co-occur. Studies of their comorbidity have generally focused on associations related to a subset of mental disorders. OBJECTIVE To estimate bidirectional associations between asthma and 10 broad types of mental disorders. METHODS In a population-based cohort study, including all individuals born...

The complement system, including complement components 3 and 4 (C3, C4), traditionally has been linked to innate immunity. More recently, complement components have also been implicated in brain development and the risk of schizophrenia. Based on a large, population-based case-cohort study, we measured the blood concentrations of C3 and C4 in 68,76...

Objective No medications have been indicated for the treatment of anorexia nervosa (AN). Nonetheless, individuals with AN are frequently treated pharmacologically. The present study maps nationwide pharmacotherapy two years before to five years after first AN diagnosis. Methods We identified all medication prescriptions in a national register-base...

Common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are predicted to collectively explain 40–50% of phenotypic variation in human height, but identifying the specific variants and associated regions requires huge sample sizes¹. Here, using data from a genome-wide association study of 5.4 million individuals of diverse ancestries, we show that 12,111 inde...

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a serious condition associated with potentially tragic outcomes, and in an ideal world PPDs should be prevented. Risk prediction models have been developed in psychiatry estimating an individual’s probability of developing a specific condition, and recently a few models have also emerged within the field of PPD resear...

Objective: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a multifactorial neurodevelopmental disorder, yet the interplay between ADHD polygenic risk scores (PRSs) and other risk factors remains relatively unexplored. The authors investigated associations, confounding, and interactions of ADHD PRS with birth-related, somatic, and psychosocial...

Background Many patients with schizophrenia experience psychiatric symptoms long before being diagnosed. We investigated patterns of pre-diagnostic psychopharmacological treatment in individuals diagnosed with first-episode schizophrenia during the last two decades. Design Using Danish nationwide healthcare registers, we identified all individuals...

PurposeWe explored associations between clinical factors, including eating disorder psychopathology and more general psychopathology, and involuntary treatment in patients with anorexia nervosa. Our intention was to inform identification of patients at risk of involuntary treatment.Methods This was a retrospective cohort study combining clinical da...

Objective: Studies on parental socioeconomic status (SES) and family risk factors for eating disorders (EDs) have yielded inconsistent results; however, several studies have identified high parental educational attainment as a risk factor. The aim was to evaluate associations of parental SES and family composition with anorexia nervosa (AN), bulim...

The vitamin D binding protein (DBP), encoded by the group-specific component (GC) gene, is a much-studied component of the vitamin D system. In a genome-wide association study of DBP concentration in 65,589 neonates, we identified 26 independent loci, 17 of which were in or close to the GC gene, with fine-mapping identifying 2 loci on chromosomes 1...

Background Weight trajectories might reflect individual health status. In this study, we aimed to examine the clinical and genetic associations of adult weight trajectories using electronic health records (EHRs) in the BioMe Biobank. Methods We constructed four weight trajectories based on a-priori definitions of weight changes (5% or 10%) using a...

Objective Individuals with eating disorders have anxiety and depression symptoms. To study these comorbidities, we need high-quality self-report measures appropriate for patients and population samples covering a wide range of symptoms. One potential tool is the 19-item self-rated version of the Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale for Aff...

About 20% of individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) remain chronically ill. Therefore, early identification of poor outcome could improve care. Genetic research has identified regions of the genome associated with AN. Patients with anorexia nervosa were identified via the Swedish eating disorder quality registers Stepwise and Riksät and invited to...

Research on early-life family environment on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) risk is limited, and sex differences have not been sufficiently studied. We investigated early-life family composition and parental socio-economic status (SES) as OCD risk factors while stratifying for sex in a sample of 1,154,067 individuals from the Danish population...

Objective: Previous literature has established an increased risk of eating disorders among individuals with other psychiatric disorders and vice versa. However, often studies have focused on eating disorders as a single diagnostic entity and/or investigated selected psychiatric comorbidities. We conducted a comprehensive study, exploring bidirecti...

Background Longitudinal weight trajectories may reflect individual health status. We examined the genetic aetiology and clinical consequences of adult weight trajectories in males and females leveraging genetic and phenotypic data in the electronic health records (EHR) of the Bio Me ™ Biobank. Methods We constructed four longitudinal weight trajec...

Depression is associated with general medical conditions (GMCs), but it is not known if treatment-resistant depression (TRD) affects GMC risk and vice versa. We estimated bidirectional associations between TRD and GMCs (prior and subsequent). All individuals aged 18–69 years, born and living in Denmark, with a first-time prescription for an antidep...

Background A subgroup of patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) undergoing involuntary treatment (IT) seems to account for most of the IT events. Little is known about these patients and their treatment including the temporal distribution of IT events and factors associated with subsequent utilization of IT. Hence, this study explores (1) utilization...

Background: Anorexia nervosa (AN), a serious eating disorder, and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) share a number of key symptoms, for example, discomfort during eating and early satiety. Despite the symptom overlap, studies on comorbidity are limited and mostly conducted in relatively small samples. This study investigates the comorbidity of dia...

Eating disorders and schizophrenia are both moderately to highly heritable and share significant genetic risk despite distinct diagnostic criteria. Large-scale family studies on the co-aggregation of these disorders are lacking. Thus, we aimed to estimate the co-occurrence and familial co-aggregation of these disorders within the entire Swedish and...

Background Genetics and biology may influence the age at onset of anorexia nervosa (AN). The aims of this study were to determine whether common genetic variation contributes to AN age at onset and to investigate the genetic associations between age at onset of AN and age at menarche. Methods A secondary analysis of the Psychiatric Genomics Consor...

Background: ADHD is multifactorial, yet the interplay ADHD polygenic risks scores (ADHD-PRS) and other ADHD associated risk-factors remains relatively unexplored. The aim of this study was to investigate associations, confounding and interactions of ADHD-PRS with birth, somatic and psychosocial risk-factors previously associated with ADHD. Methods:...

Background Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) immune alterations have been associated with mental disorders, neurological disease, and CNS infections; however, comprehensive large-scale longitudinal CSF studies are lacking. Methods By using the Clinical Laboratory Information System (LABKA) Research Database in the Central Denmark Region (1994-2012), we in...

Background Comorbidity with general medical conditions is common in individuals with eating disorders. Many previous studies do not evaluate types of eating disorder. Aims To provide relative and absolute risks of bidirectional associations between (a) anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and eating disorders not otherwise specified and (b) 12 genera...

About 20% of individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) remain chronically ill. Therefore, early identification of poor outcome could improve care. Genetic research has identified regions of the genome associated with AN. Patients with anorexia nervosa were identified via the Swedish eating disorder quality registers Stepwise and Riksät and invited to...

Objective: To investigate vagotomy, the severance of the vagus nerve, and its association with mental disorders, as gut-brain communication partly mediated by the vagus nerve have been suggested as a risk factor. Methods: Nationwide population-based Danish register study of all individuals alive and living in Denmark during the study period 1977...

Background The Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI) is an international investigation exploring the role of genes and environment in anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Methods A total of 14,500 individuals with eating disorders and 1500 controls will be included from the United States (US), Australia (AU), New Zea...

Objective: To ascertain the association and coaggregation of eating disorders and childhood-onset type 1 diabetes in families. Research design and methods: Using population samples from national registers in Sweden (n = 2,517,277) and Demark (n = 1,825,920), we investigated the within-individual association between type 1 diabetes and eating dis...

Background Infectious mononucleosis is a clinical diagnosis characterized by fever, sore throat, lymph node enlargement and often prolonged fatigue, most commonly caused by Epstein-Barr virus infection. Previous studies have indicated that infectious mononucleosis can be followed by depression; however, large-scale studies are lacking. We used nati...

Background Depression is one of the leading causes of premature workforce exit in many Western countries, but little is known about the extent to which treatment-resistance reduces number of work-years. We compared the risk of premature workforce exit among patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) relative to non-TRD patients and estimate...

The nature and prevalence of combinations of mental disorders and their associations with premature mortality have never been reported in a comprehensive way. We describe the most common combinations of mental disorders and estimate excess mortality associated with these combinations. We designed a population-based cohort study including all 7,505,...

Many medical treatments, from oncology to psychiatry, can lower white blood cell counts and thus access to these treatments can be restricted to individuals with normal levels of white blood cells, principally in order to minimise risk of serious infection. This adversely affects individuals of African or Middle Eastern ancestries who have on avera...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Background: Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an autoimmune blistering skin disease that takes a profound physical and mental toll on those affected. The aim of the study was to investigate the bidirectional association between BP and all bullous disorders (ABD) with a broad array of psychiatric disorders, exploring the influence of prescribed medication...

Individuals with psychiatric disorders perform differently in school compared to the general population. Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to such differences. Existing studies on the association of educational attainment polygenic score (EA-PGS) with school performance were based on individuals from the general population and it is...

Objectives The aim was to describe the pre‐diagnostic and post‐diagnostic psychopharmacological treatment of bipolar disorder over the past two decades. Methods We identified all 16,288 individuals aged ≥18 years, who received their first diagnosis of bipolar disorder at a psychiatric hospital in Denmark between 1997 and 2014. For each calendar ye...

Background Medical diseases and depression frequently co-occur, but it remains uncertain whether specific medical diseases or the disease load, affect the clinical course of depression. Methods We identified all adults (≥18 years) at their first hospital-based diagnosis of unipolar depression in Denmark between 1996 and 2015. All medical hospital...

Individuals with psychiatric disorders perform differently in school compared to the general population. Genetic factors contribute substantially to such differences. It is however unclear if differential performance is seen across all cognitive domains such as math and language. Here we report a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of school grade...

Genome-wide association studies have discovered hundreds of loci associated with complex brain disorders, but it remains unclear in which cell types these loci are active. Here we integrate genome-wide association study results with single-cell transcriptomic data from the entire mouse nervous system to systematically identify cell types underlying...

Background Persons with mental disorders are at a higher risk than the general population for the subsequent development of certain medical conditions. Methods We used a population-based cohort from Danish national registries that included data on more than 5.9 million persons born in Denmark from 1900 through 2015 and followed them from 2000 thro...

Background CNS infections have been suggested as risk factors for cognitive decline and mental disorders; however, large-scale studies have been lacking regarding types and agents of CNS infections. Methods We utilized the unique personal registration number to create a cohort of 1,709,867 individuals born 1977-2010. CNS infection was exposure and...

Importance Onset of mental disorders during childhood or adolescence has been associated with underperformance in school and impairment in social and occupational life in adulthood, which has important implications for the affected individuals and society. Objective To compare the educational achievements at the final examination of compulsory sch...

Eating disorders and substance use disorders frequently co‐occur. Twin studies reveal shared genetic variance between liabilities to eating disorders and substance use, with the strongest associations between symptoms of bulimia nervosa and problem alcohol use (genetic correlation [rg], twin‐based = 0.23‐0.53). We estimated the genetic correlation...

(Abstracted from Nat Comm 2019;10:3043) Epidemiologic associations have been made between advanced paternal age and increased offspring risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), schizophrenia (SCZ), congenital heart disease (CHD), epilepsy (EPI), and intellectual disability (ID). This association have been often attributed to de novo single nucleotid...

Drugs acting on the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may have beneficial effects on mental health. We investigated whether use of drugs acting on the RAS, as add-on to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), was associated with a reduced risk of psychiatric hospital contacts. We identified all individuals initiating treatment with an SSRI be...

Background Among the most disabling and fatal psychiatric illnesses, eating disorders (EDs) often manifest early in life, which encourages investigations into in utero and perinatal environmental risk factors. The objective of this study was to determine whether complications during pregnancy and birth and perinatal conditions are associated with l...

Background: Chronic stress in childhood may increase the risk of overweight and obesity in young people. Erik Hemmingsson has suggested a new obesity causation model which focuses on psychosocial stress. The aim was to examine the associations between socioeconomic disadvantage and overweight and obesity and examine if these associations attenuate...

Eating disorders and substance use disorders frequently co-occur. Twin studies reveal shared genetic variance between liabilities to eating disorders and substance use, with the strongest associations between symptoms of bulimia nervosa (BN) and problem alcohol use (genetic correlation [rg], twin-based=0.23-0.53). We estimated the genetic correlati...

In Reply We thank Giel et al for reviewing our work¹ and sharing their concerns about possible misclassification of infections as eating disorder symptoms. We fully acknowledge that register-based data cannot confirm nor deny the presence of inflammation/infections, that hospitalizations and prescriptions for antibiotics in the current study are us...

Characterized primarily by a low body-mass index, anorexia nervosa is a complex and serious illness¹, affecting 0.9–4% of women and 0.3% of men2–4, with twin-based heritability estimates of 50–60%⁵. Mortality rates are higher than those in other psychiatric disorders⁶, and outcomes are unacceptably poor⁷. Here we combine data from the Anorexia Nerv...

There are established associations between advanced paternal age and offspring risk for psychiatric and developmental disorders. These are commonly attributed to genetic mutations, especially de novo single nucleotide variants (dnSNVs), that accumulate with increasing paternal age. However, the actual magnitude of risk from such mutations in the ma...

Background: Somatic diseases have been associated with an increased risk for subsequent schizophrenia; however, it is unknown whether prior somatic diseases negatively affect early treatment outcomes after a first-time schizophrenia diagnosis. Methods: We included all individuals born in Denmark after January 1st, 1977 and first-time diagnosed w...

Childhood infection has been proposed as an important etiologic factor for schizophrenia. However, it is unclear to what extent the association between childhood infection and schizophrenia is confounded by parental socioeconomic status and mental illness, and childhood adversity, and whether the association is explained by familial liability for i...

Objective To determine the mortality for persons with epilepsy and schizophrenia by absolute and relative measures. Methods This is a population‐based nationwide cohort study of persons born in Denmark from 1960 to 1987 who were alive and residing in Denmark on their 25th birthday. We identified persons diagnosed with epilepsy and schizophrenia pr...

Importance Infections are recognized as playing a critical role in the risk of psychiatric disorders and suicidal behavior; however, few studies have evaluated the risk of eating disorders. Objective To evaluate the association of hospitalization for infections and treatment with anti-infective agents with the risk of an eating disorder diagnosis....

Objective: To investigate sex differences in associations between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a spectrum of comorbid disorders. Method: The study population included all children born in Denmark from 1981 through 2013 (N = 1,665,729). Data were merged from Danish registers and information was obtained on birth characteris...

Importance Infections have been associated with increased risks for mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and depression. However, the association between all infections requiring treatment and the wide range of mental disorders is unknown to date. Objective To investigate the association between all treated infections since birth and the subseq...

Background : The effect of statin treatment on the risk of developing depression remains unclear. Therefore, we assessed the association between statin treatment and depression in a nationwide register-based cohort study with up to 20 years of follow up. Methods : We identified all statin users in the period from 1996 to 2013 among individuals bor...

Objective Involuntary treatment is controversial and widely debated, but remains a significant component of treatment for severe anorexia nervosa. Given how little is known about this topic, we describe the frequency of various involuntary measures in a national cohort of all patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. In a subsample of patients, we...

Background: Evidence links infections to mental disorders and suicidal behavior. However, knowledge is sparse regarding less severe infections, anti-infective treatment, and deliberate self-harm. Using nationwide Danish longitudinal registers, we estimated associations between infections treated with anti-infective agents and infections requiring...

Background: Childhood and adolescent mortality accounts for a substantial proportion of years lost prematurely. Reducing childhood and adolescent mortality relies on knowing characteristics of those at elevated risk of dying young. We therefore aimed to identify such characteristics; our main hypothesis is that psychosocial adversity in infancy is...

Background: Previous studies have shown associations between maternal infections during pregnancy and increased risks of schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder in the offspring. However, large-scale studies investigating an association between parental infections both during and outside the pregnancy period and the risk of any mental disorder...

Background: Genetic factors contribute to anorexia nervosa (AN); and the first genome-wide significant locus has been identified. We describe methods and procedures for the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI), an international collaboration designed to rapidly recruit 13,000 individuals with AN as well as ancestrally matched controls. We p...

The effect of statin treatment on the risk of developing depression remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to assess the association between statin treatment and depression in a nationwide register-based cohort study with up to 20 years of follow up. We identified all statin users among all individuals born in Denmark between 1920 and 1983. One non-u...

Objective: This study aims to examine the association between maternal age, paternal age, and parental age difference at the time of birth and the risk of epilepsy in the offspring. Methods: We carried out a prospective population-based register study of all singletons born in Denmark between 1981 and 2012. Cox regression was used to estimate ha...

Background: Studies have suggested that poor school achievement is associated with increased risk of schizophrenia; however, the possible genetic contribution to this association is unknown. We investigated the possible effect of the polygenic risk score (PRS) for schizophrenia (PRSSCZ) and for educational attainment (PRSEDU) on the association be...

Background: Adverse early life experience and development may have long-term health consequences, but later environmental conditions may perhaps protect against the effects of such early life adversities. The aim was to investigate whether cause-specific and overall mortality rates among adoptees are associated with the age at which they were tran...

Background Infections and inflammatory diseases have long been suggested as risk factors for cognitive decline and mental disorders, most notably schizophrenia and affective disorders. However, largescale studies have been lacking. This study aims to investigate the association between specific CNS-infections and the risk of developing mental disor...

Objective Prior studies have indicated that both high and low school grades are associated with development of bipolar disorder (BD), but these studies have not adjusted for parental history of mental disorder, which is a likely confounder. Furthermore, the association between school grades and bipolar I disorder (BD-I) has not been studied. Theref...

Background Genetic factors contribute to anorexia nervosa (AN); and the first genome-wide significant locus has been identified. We describe methods and procedures for the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI), an international collaboration designed to rapidly recruit 13000 individuals with AN as well as ancestrally matched controls. We pres...

Background: Hospitalizations for infections have been associated with subsequent decreased cognitive ability, but it is uncertain if childhood infections influence subsequent scholastic achievement (SA). We aimed to estimate the association between infections during childhood and SA. Methods: Nationwide prospective cohort-study including 598,553...

Objectives: Identifying factors associated with risk for eating disorders is important for clarifying etiology and for enhancing early detection of eating disorders in primary care. We hypothesized that autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases would be associated with eating disorders in children and adolescents and that family history of these il...

Objective: Previous studies evaluating the association between early childhood adversities and eating disorders have yielded conflicting results. The aim of this study is to examine the association between a range of adversities and risk of anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) in 495,244...

Background: Trauma histories may increase risk of perinatal psychiatric episodes. We designed an epidemiological population-based cohort study to explore if adverse childhood experiences (ACE) in girls increases risk of later postpartum psychiatric episodes. Methods: Using Danish registers, we identified women born in Denmark between January 198...

Background There are well-established epidemiologic associations between advanced paternal age and increased offspring risk for several psychiatric and developmental disorders. These associations are commonly attributed to age-related de novo mutations. However, the actual magnitude of risk conferred by age-related de novo mutations in the male ger...

Results from twin, family, and adoption studies all suggest that general intelligence is highly heritable. Several studies have shown lower premorbid intelligence in individuals before the onset of both mood disorders and psychosis, as well as in children and adolescents at genetic high risk for developing schizophrenia. Based on these findings, we...

Objective: Mesolimbic dopamine sensitization has been hypothesized to be a mediating factor of childhood adversity (CA) on schizophrenia risk. Activity of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met increases mesolimbic dopamine signaling and may be further regulated by methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T. This study investigates t...

Introduction Prior studies have indicated that both high and low school achievement are associated with development of bipolar disorder (BD). We believe that the latter association may be due to the confounding effect of family history of mental disorder. Objective To further investigate the association between school achievement and subsequent de...

Background: Early adversity is a known risk factor for unipolar depression. We examined the impact of 9 types of early adversity on risk for moderate to severe unipolar depression in adolescence or adulthood, and evaluated whether these effects were moderated by gender and adversity timing. Methods: We conducted a prospective, population-based c...

Background: Childhood trauma is a risk factor in the etiology of schizophrenia. Mesolimbic dopamine sensitization has been hypothesized to be a mediating factor of childhood trauma on the risk of schizophrenia. Activity of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met increases mesolimbic dopamine signaling, and COMT activity may be further regulat...

Exposure to an urban environment during early life and low IQ are 2 well-established risk factors for schizophrenia. It is not known, however, how these factors might relate to one another. Data were pooled from the North Jutland regional draft board IQ assessments and the Danish Conscription Registry for men born between 1955 and 1993. Excluding t...