{"id":197050,"date":"2025-10-08T06:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/197050\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T06:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:09:08","slug":"females-carry-a-higher-genetic-risk-of-depression-than-males-scientists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/197050\/","title":{"rendered":"Females carry a higher genetic risk of depression than males, scientists say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>W\ufeffomen carry a much higher risk of genetic depression than men, a study by Australian experts has found.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeffThe scientists identified twice as many &#8220;flags&#8221;\ufeff, or warning signs, of the condition in the DNA of females as males.<\/p>\n<p>The global study by QMIR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, in Queensland, analysed the DNA of 200,000 people suffering depression, with twice as many female participants as male.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/7f72c1dc-9e83-4bd5-b57f-8d93c84e6c7a.jpeg\"   alt=\"In silhouette of woman sad depression in bedroom.\"\/>New research has found women carry twice the genetic risk of depression than men. (Getty)<\/p>\n<p>It revealed there were about 7000 changes in the DNA that could trigger depression in both sexes, and about a further 6000 DNA changes that could cause depression in females only.<\/p>\n<p>Women were also more likely to display symptoms such as daytime drowsiness, greater appetite and putting on weight.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Men had different symptoms, which include substance abuse, anger and risk-taking behaviour.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Researcher Jodi Thomas said she hoped findings of the study, published in the journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-63236-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Nature Communications\">Nature Communications<\/a>, would lead to more sex-specific research into depression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unpacking the shared and unique genetic factors in males and females gives us a clearer picture of what causes depression &#8211; and opens the door to more personalised treatments,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The findings highlight the importance of considering sex-specific genetic influences in studying depression and other health conditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"W\ufeffomen carry a much higher risk of genetic depression than men, a study by Australian experts has found.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-197050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}