Depression-Genetics

Depression -- Genetics

Over 20 million people in the United States have some form of depression, and it is commonly passed from generation to generation; parents to children.

toc =What scientists have to say= Scientists look at patterns of illness a family to estimate their percentage to have this disorder. To do this, scientists find people with the disease who have a twin, and then find out whether the twin has the same illness. Identical twins can share 100% of their genes, while non-identical twins share 50% of their genes. If genes are part of the cause, expect that person's identical twin to have a much higher risk of disease than a person's non-identical twin. In most cases, this is what occurs from the depression genetics through twins. Heritability is probably 40-50%, and possibly could be higher for severe depression, but it is never sure set and stone.

=Possibility of a "depression gene"= Scientists have done research to see what may be evidence to one or two genes that can cause depression, and there could be even more. The combination of these genes could relate the major depressive disorder to genetics rather than environment problems. From what has been researched, depression is genetic but is triggered by environment problems. People can carry the unknown number of genes for depression and still live a depress-free life, but poor environment issues usually end up raising the disorder into notice.

=Male or Female?= Genetics have shown to appear in twice as many females compared to males, which raises questions onto what other genes are part of a female to cause this higher rate rather than men.

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