If you have a genetic tendency toward depression, you’ll respond to social support faster than most…

August 21, 2023. 41% of couples who show up for couples therapy include at least one spouse who is clinically depressed.

• Some people are at greater risk of depression due to their genes, but social support buffers humans against the negative effects.

• Some folks are unlucky in that they have an above average tendency toward depression. If depression runs in your family, having someone to reach out to, and feel and support from, is highly protective, and soothes the nervous system.

• This research come from an unusual study of 2 distinctly different human cohorts under stress; new physicians… and women whose husbands had recently passed away — both cohorts were groups predictably experiencing unusually intense stress.

How the study was conducted

The researchers created a measure of each study subjects risk of depression due to their genetic makeup. They established this polygenic risk score for each study subject.

• The results showed that the doctors and widows who were at a greater genetic risk of depression did measurably better when they received social support during a period of intense stress.

• Those unlucky humans without social support suffered consistently at higher levels of depression.

Professor Srijan Sen, study co-author, said:

“Our data show wide variability in the level of social support individuals received during these stressful times, and how it changed over time.

We hope these findings, which incorporate genetic risk scores as well as measures of social support and depressive symptoms, illuminate the gene-environment interactions and specifically the importance of social connection in depression risk.”

Srijan Sen is the Director of the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center and is the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg Professor of Depression and Neurosciences. 

Dr. Sen’s research focuses on the interactions between genes and the environment and their impact on anxiety, depression, and stress. 

He directs the large Intern Health Study, which focuses on studying physicians in their first year of post-medical school training.

Dr. Sen’s creativity in using genomics, mobile technology, and other tools is yielding groundbreaking insights how poorly managed stress can be a gateway into depression.

As of February 2021, the study included data in excess of 25,000 interns working at over 100 U.S. and Chinese teaching hospitals.

Why did the doctor’s stress double during the first year?

The study tracked almost 1,500 doctors and recently widowed wives.

• Stress levels for new doctors more than doubled in their first year of practice, the researchers found, while the widows saw their stress increases by only a third. That seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it?

• The researchers also learned that doctors, once they graduated from medical school, tended to lose their social supports as they were moving away from most, if not all, the people they had spent the last few years training with.

• The widows, however, felt an increase in social support as friends and family rallied around them.

• It’s important to note that in both of these profoundly different groups, the humans who gained social support had fewer symptoms of depression. Those humans with a genetic tendency toward depression tended to exhibit the greatest and most dramatic benefit.

Measuring sensitivity to loss… an ongoing research focus…

Now the researchers want to know why some people are so profoundly sensitive to a loss of social support. This research reminds of the piece I wrote on unsupportive spouse depression.

Social support from our beloved life partner is the most powerful juju of them all….

Professor Sen summed up the findings:

“Further understanding the different genetic profiles associated with sensitivity to loss of social support, insufficient sleep, excessive work stress and other risk factors could help us develop personalized guidance for depression prevention.

In the meantime, these findings reaffirm how important social connections, social support and individual sensitivity to the social environment are as factors in wellbeing and preventing depression.”

I wish Dr. Sen well in all his future research endeavors, because I despise meaningless suffering.

Be well and Godspeed.

RESEARCH:

Polygenic Risk and Social Support in Predicting Depression Under Stress

Jennifer L. Cleary, M.S.,Yu Fang, M.S.E., Laura B. Zahodne, Ph.D., Amy S.B. Bohnert, Ph.D., Margit Burmeister , Ph.D., Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D.

Published Online:11 Jan 2023https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.21111100

The study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry (Cleary et al., 2022).