Vietnam Era Twin Registry Overview

Twins are a unique resource for research in helping to understand the genetic and non-genetic contribution to health and disease. In the Nordic countries, such as Sweden (Cederlof et al., 1970), Finland (Kaprio et al., 1987), Norway (Kringlen, 1978), and Denmark (Kyvik et al., 1996), registries of twins have existed for many generations. These registries have proven invaluable in teasing apart questions about the interplay of genes and environment in understanding complex diseases.

In the United States, there is a paucity of twin registries and this has been a serious impediment to research. Currently, no formal national twin registry exists, though several states possess registries, such as Minnesota (Lykken et al., 1990), Missouri (Todd et al., 2001) and Virginia (Corey et al., 1991). The largest national twin registry in the US is the National Academy of Sciences Medical Follow-up Agency (MFUA) WW-II Twin Registry (Jablon et al., 1967). The MFUA Twin Registry was complied in the 1960's and consists of approximately 16,000 white male-male twin pairs who both served in the military during the Second World War. This Registry of elderly veterans has been used to study numerous diseases and conditions, including cardiovascular disorders (Feinleib et al., 1977) and more recently Parkinson's Disease (Tanner et al., 1999) and Alzheimer's Disease (Gallo & Breitner, 1995).

The Vietnam Era Twin Registry is the only other national registry of twins in the United States (Eisen et al., 1987; Henderson et al., 1990).