The first study to present the prevalence comorbidity and heritability of hoarding in adolescents just came out in PLoS ONE. In this study, we report that 2% of Swedish 15-year olds report symptoms of hoarding including distress and/or impairment. This is quite surprising given that hoarding is considered to be a problem most common among the elderly. We also found that hoarding seldom co-occurs with OCD which supports the status of Hoarding Disorder, which has been separated from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in the new DSM-5. Finally, using the twin design we were able to conclude that hoarding symptoms are heritable during adolescence but only in boys. In girls, the environment, both the shared, and non-shared between twins accounted for the variability in hoarding symptoms.
Our research group has been collaborating with the Swedish Twin Registry and Professor David Mataix-Cols on this paper and this partnership is only at its start. Keep following us to see what the incredible Swedish Twin data will tell us in the future!
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0069140
Ivanov VZ, Mataix-Cols D, Serlachius E, Lichtenstein P, Anckarsäter H, Chang Z, Hellner Gumpert C, Lundström S, Långström N, Rück C. (2013) Prevalence, Comorbidity and Heritability of Hoarding Symptoms in Adolescence: A Population Based Twin Study in 15-Year Olds. PLoS ONE 8(7): e69140.
