Solid Data Linking Genetics and Depression

Recently, scientists have made an important breakthrough for one of the world's most serious and crippling illnesses. Originally discovered by a group of British scientists, a group in the US replicated the same findings in a completely separate study of people. It has been found that there is genetic variation, specifically in chromosome 3p25-26, in people who experience depression. In science, result replication is extremely hard to come by and if discovered, usually takes many years. This study is ground breaking because the same exact results were found by two isolated studies almost immediately.
Currently, around 20% of people experience major depression through out their lives, while 4% of people struggle their entire lives. It was even predicted by the World Health Organization that depression will, by 2020, beat out heart disease in being the number one most burdensome disease. The illness is very difficult to treat due to complexity and lack of understanding, but these results will help doctors and scientists to better understand and treat the disorder and in addition, will shape new and more successful medicine.

Being among the 4% of individuals who throughout their lifetime have and continue to struggle with depression, I am elated at this news. I believe that Major Depressive Disorder is one of the most misunderstood and downplayed illnesses in the world. There is so much taboo associated with mental illnesses and such a great deal that people without the disease do not understand. Seeing science progress and become closer to finding the genetic root of this disease is a step to better treatment, education, understanding, and lives.

The First Blood Test Which Uses genetic markers to diagnose depression in Teens

The problem with using the usual method of diagnosing depression in teens just based on symptoms is that teens is that most teenagers have mood swing in this age period. It's important to diagnose and treat it in teens because if untreated there is a higher chance of these teens getting into substance abuse, social maladjustment, physical illness and suicide.

The study subjects included 14 adolescents with major depression who had not been clinically treated and 14 non-depressed adolescents, all between 15 to 19 years old. The depressed and control subjects were matched by sex and race.



"Eva Redei's, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead investigator of the study in her lab tested the adolescents' blood for 26 genetic blood markers of depression which had discovered in her previous decades long research withwith depressed and anxious rats .  She discovered 11 of the markers were able to differentiate between depressed and non-depressed adolescents. In addition, 18 of the 26 markers distinguished between patients that had only major depression and those who had major depression combined with anxiety disorder" (Science Daily).

The blood test will not only be able to test for depression but also the subtypes of depression and therefore raises hopes of treatments tailored to each individual needs. I think this is great because the depression symptoms are a kind of a vague way of diagnsing the symptom and especially the subtypes of it.