{"id":198957,"date":"2025-10-09T01:44:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T01:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198957\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T01:44:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T01:44:15","slug":"study-finds-women-have-higher-genetic-risk-of-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198957\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds women have higher genetic risk of depression"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SYDNEY: Women are genetically at higher risk of clinical depression than men, Australian researchers found in a study published on Wednesday (Oct 8) that could change how the disorder is treated.<\/p>\n<p>Billed as one of the largest-ever studies of its kind, scientists pored through the DNA of almost 200,000 people with depression to pinpoint shared genetic &#8220;flags&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Women had almost twice as many of these genetic markers linked to depression as men, according to the project led by Australia&#8217;s Berghofer Medical Research Institute.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The genetic component to depression is larger in females compared to males,&#8221; said researcher Jodi Thomas.<\/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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/singapore\/depression-mental-health-personalised-treatment-imh-nus-yong-loo-lin-clinical-trial-mri-brain-4266156\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">opens the door to more personalised treatments<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It has long been known that depression is more common in women, but the biological causes remain something of a mystery.<\/p>\n<p>Around 13,000 genetic markers were linked with depression in women, the researchers found, compared with 7,000 markers in men.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these genetic changes could alter biological pathways linked to metabolism or hormone production.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We found some genetic differences that may help explain why females with depression more often experience metabolic symptoms, such as weight changes or altered energy levels,&#8221; Thomas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Researcher Brittany Mitchell said the findings could lead to changes in how depression is treated in women.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Until now, there hasn&#8217;t been much consistent research to explain why depression affects females and males differently, including the possible role of genetics,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are more and more stories coming out about how many of the medications that are currently developed &#8211; and the research that we&#8217;ve known to date &#8211; has mostly been focused around men or male participants.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Clinical depression, or major depressive disorder, is one of the most common mental disorders in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More than 300 million people across the globe have depression, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n<p>The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SYDNEY: Women are genetically at higher risk of clinical depression than men, Australian researchers found in a study&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[49,48,6319,316,393,8680,66,2372],"class_list":{"0":"post-198957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-depression","11":"tag-genetics","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-psychology","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-womens-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}