Mental Health Matters: Can depression be passed through generations?

Recently, we received a question from someone who asked if depression was linked to family genetics or was it an individual issue.

Last year, we would have said depression does happen in family clusters and most likely this was because of coping mechanisms and other factors were learned within family units.

As of this month, a research team in Britain — at exactly the same time as a genetic research team from Washington University — reported about 40 per cent of the risk of depression is contributed directly by genes, with the rest arising from external factors.

This is a very important discovery, as depression is one of the most-common (and expensive) mental illnesses in the world, affecting around 20 per cent of people at some point in their lives.

Severe and recurring depression affects about four per cent of the population and the World Health Organization has warned depression will surpass heart disease as having the greatest disease burden in the world by 2020.

Currently, medications are effective in treating about half of those with a mental illness.

What is amazing about the scientific results reported this month is the two research groups were working completely separately and found a link to the exact same cluster of genes.

Now, one of the teams is trying to look within that cluster and find the specific gene that may pass depression from one generation to the next.

For decades, people have believed those suffering with depression should be able to just “snap out of it” or “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

The belief depression could be solved through strong personal will alone created a bias against those with depression in families or in the workplace leading to accusations that people with depression were lazy, attention-seeking or generally weak-willed.

These beliefs make it difficult for people to admit they are struggling or to seek help — and we know this makes the situation worse.

Cystic fibrosis is a genetically acquired illness and we have no such feelings or beliefs about people who have this condition.

Why can we be so judgmental about people with mental illnesses?

One of the keys to successful treatment of depression is to seek help as early as possible.

The sooner one starts treatment, the better the chance of a quicker recovery.

As depression drags on, the consequences to relationships, work and physical health become more pronounced.

You can read or download a free booklet from CMHA called Depression: What it is – What to Do? at our website at kamloops.cmha.bc.ca and be sure to write to us Kamloops@cmha.bc.ca if you have comments or questions because we always love to hear from you.