AGL 40.76 Decreased By ▼ -0.74 (-1.78%)
AIRLINK 127.82 Decreased By ▼ -0.18 (-0.14%)
BOP 6.52 Increased By ▲ 0.26 (4.15%)
CNERGY 4.16 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (0.73%)
DCL 8.44 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
DFML 40.89 Increased By ▲ 0.20 (0.49%)
DGKC 87.20 Decreased By ▼ -0.70 (-0.8%)
FCCL 33.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.30 (-0.88%)
FFBL 65.90 Decreased By ▼ -0.43 (-0.65%)
FFL 10.55 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.09%)
HUBC 109.80 Increased By ▲ 1.10 (1.01%)
HUMNL 14.90 Increased By ▲ 0.44 (3.04%)
KEL 4.82 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (3.66%)
KOSM 7.65 Increased By ▲ 0.32 (4.37%)
MLCF 42.19 Decreased By ▼ -0.53 (-1.24%)
NBP 61.50 Increased By ▲ 0.66 (1.08%)
OGDC 179.10 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (0.07%)
PAEL 25.87 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (0.66%)
PIBTL 6.25 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (3.14%)
PPL 146.51 Increased By ▲ 0.36 (0.25%)
PRL 24.56 Decreased By ▼ -0.35 (-1.41%)
PTC 16.27 Increased By ▲ 0.13 (0.81%)
SEARL 70.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.20 (-0.28%)
TELE 7.39 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (2.35%)
TOMCL 36.45 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (0.69%)
TPLP 7.87 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (0.38%)
TREET 15.70 Increased By ▲ 0.11 (0.71%)
TRG 52.00 Increased By ▲ 1.64 (3.26%)
UNITY 27.19 Increased By ▲ 0.29 (1.08%)
WTL 1.24 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 9,833 Increased By 39 (0.4%)
BR30 29,861 Increased By 214.1 (0.72%)
KSE100 92,280 Increased By 258.6 (0.28%)
KSE30 28,711 Increased By 46.1 (0.16%)

For the first time, researchers have found that the environment you're raised in is as important as your genes in determining risk for major depression. In a large retrospective study, researchers looked at depression diagnoses among more than 2.2 million people in Sweden and their parents and found that genetic factors and household environment contributed equally to odds that the illness would be "transmitted" from parents to offspring.
The results-based on comparing adopted and biological offspring from both intact and broken families - contradict many previous findings from twin studies that suggested genetic predisposition plays the larger role in the inheritance of depression, the authors write in JAMA Psychiatry. "Their sample sizes were much too small and not always representative," said lead author Dr Kenneth Kendler, a professor of psychiatry and human and molecular genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
"Adoption studies are probably the most powerful method available to understand the mechanism of parent-offspring transmission," Kendler said by email. "An important feature of this study was our ability to replicate the results from adoptive and biological parents by findings from step- and not-lived-with parents. This increases considerably our confidence in these findings." In 2015, almost 7 percent of all adults in the U.S., or an estimated 16.1 million individuals age 18 or older, reported having had at least one major depressive episode in the past year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The disorder is associated with significant work, school and health problems, substance abuse and an increased risk of death by suicide.
Using data collected from January 1960 through December 2016, Kendler and his colleagues analyzed newly available Swedish primary care registries, combined with hospital and psychiatric outpatient records to trace treated major depressive disorder in parents and offspring. They examined five types of families with various combinations of biological or adoptive offspring, intact households, and those with an absent father, a stepfather or both. The new data indicating that genes are not destiny have a range of implications for research, treatment and child-rearing, experts said.
"There's been this huge move in biological psychiatry to look for the genes involved in mental illness," said Robert Klitzman, a professor of clinical psychiatry and director of the masters of bioethics program at Columbia University in New York City, who wasn't involved in the study. "We need to push research money so we're not looking exclusively at genes, but spending sufficient time figuring out the best ways to treat the psychosocial factors of depression," Klitzman said in a telephone interview. "This study provides strong evidence to support public policy for covering mental health treatment that includes a combination of drugs and therapy."
The study's data highlight that when a mother's mental health suffers, so does her child's, said Dr Joan Luby of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who wasn't involved in the research.

Comments

Comments are closed.