Is Depression Genetic?

Can you inherit this awful condition?

Photo by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash

It’s no secret that I have wondered about the impact growing up with severely depressed parents (my mother and stepfather) has had on our siblings. From both a nature and a nature perspective, I wondered if depression is genetic and can be passed on and if we ever really had a chance of escaping it.

What The Statistics Say

• A study into twins by Stanford found that identical twins prove an average genetic component of 37%.
• Studies also show that the child of a parent with depression is between two and three times more likely to develop depression.
• According to Yale News, “The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and University of California-San Diego have run a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of genetic and health records of 1.2 million people from four separate data banks has identified 178 gene variants linked to major depression”.
• The Stanford study also determined that adopted children have a greater history of depression if one of their biological parents suffered from depression, which suggests depression is genetic, at least partially.
• According to a national study of twins in Sweden, there’s also a gender…