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Breakthrough depression research finds personality types and food matter

DNA analysis has found 87 genetic changes and 102 genes associated with depression.

DNA analysis has found 87 genetic changes and 102 genes associated with depression. Photo: Getty

New research has found that having a particular personality type can make you more at risk of developing depression – and if you’re a woman, what you eat is also a big contributor.

In a series of studies released this week, researchers from around the world made significant headway in understanding what causes depression, how it can be treated and whether there’s anything that can be done to prevent it.

The most recent study, conducted by Western Sydney University, has found that eating a healthy diet significantly reduces symptoms of both depression and anxiety for women – but not for men.

Lead author Dr Joseph First said the result was unexpected.

“One explanation is that because we were looking into the effects of diet on symptoms of depression in the general population, where the rates of depression are higher among women, the change was much more visible,” he told The New Daily. 

“It’s also possible that we don’t understand how diet interacts with mental health, which could be due to genuine biological differences.”

The study’s key findings, taken from data from 16 clinical trials (and nearly 46,000 participants) showed that improving your diet seemed to reduce symptoms of depression in people – including those not clinically depressed.

“The main message is that just reducing your junk food and increasing your intake of high-nutrient foods is enough to boost your mood,” he said.

Another significant study published on Tuesday analysed the DNA of 800,000 people – of which 250,000 were depressed – and found 87 genetic changes and 102 genes associated with depression.

The University of Queensland’s Maciej Trzaskowski, one of the study’s key analysts, said the findings were seminal.

This is the biggest discovery so far,” he said.

“We can now use this genetic information to look at the relationship between depression to other behaviours, traits and disorders such as neuroticism, anxiety, schizophrenia and smoking.”

Dr Trzaskowski said scientists have for years suspected that  depression was linked to genes (family studies have consistently pointed to that) but that no one could pinpoint which genes were responsible.

The study also found that being neurotic could lead to depression.

“Neurotic people tend to worry a lot about what’s happening and what’s going to happen, and these ways of thinking have been linked to depression,” Dr Trzaskowski said.

He believes the study is a breakthrough in depression research, which has evolved little in the past 50 years. Depression is a hard condition to study because its symptoms are so varied among sufferers.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statics (ABS), about 4.8 million Australians had a mental or behavioural condition in the year 2017-18, up from 4 million in 2014-15.

Professor of Psychiatry at Deakin University Michael Berk told The New Daily that both studies were important, but that research should now find out what the genes do; how they interact with each other; and how they interact with the other risk factors involved in depression.

“Depression is very complex, and is a combination of genetic vulnerability, psychological factors, stress and lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and smoking,” he said.

Cutting out junk food and eating more nutrients is enough to help with symptoms of depression, a study has found.

The healthy diet study was a “message of hope”, because it showed that improving diet lowered the risk of depression.

“[The paper] says that diet, like physical activity and smoking, is a modifiable risk factor. We know that if you eat a healthy diet, you reduce your chance of developing depression by 30 per cent,” Professor Berk said.

To add to the effects of diet on depression, a third study, also released on Tuesday, has found an association between certain types of gut bacteria and depression.

After looking at two sample groups of 1000 people, Belgian researchers found that two specific groups of bacteria, Coprococcus and Dialister, were repeatedly depleted in people with depression.

However, the research has a long way to go, as most studies involving the gut and brain have been on animals.

Scientists hope the research will eventually lead to an improvement in treatment, and that medication will become tailored to each person, potentially increasing its efficacy and reducing exposure to many unpleasant side effects.

Lifeline 13 11 14; Beyondblue 1300 22 4636

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