Depression linked to genes: Study

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Depression linked to genes: Study

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Scientists discovered the first reason of variation in some peoples genes may cause depression.

17 May,2011 09:05 pm

The findings would bring scientists closer to developing more effective treatments for patients with depression, since currently available medicines for depression only work in around half of patients. The study reported strong link between depression and genetic variations. Major depression affects about 20 percent of people at some point in their lives. Severe and recurring depression affects up to 4 percent of people and is notoriously hard to treat. Scientists think around 40 percent of the risk of developing depression is contributed by genes, with the rest down to environmental and other external factors.The World Health Organization has forecast that depression will rival heart disease as the health disorder with the highest disease burden in the world by 2020.