Depression in women: A large international study has identified 6,133 gene variants unique to women that are linked to major depressive disorder (MDD), in addition to 7,111 variants shared by both sexes, a pattern that may help explain why women face roughly double the lifetime risk of depression compared with men.
Published in Nature Communications, the analysis drew on genetic data from around 130,000 women and 65,000 men with depression across Australia, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, alongside nearly 160,000 women and 130,000 men without depression. Researchers reported that all 7,111 causal variants implicated in men were also present in women, while no male-only variants were detected.
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The team found stronger overlap in women between depression-linked variants and metabolic traits, potentially reflecting why women with depression more often experience weight changes or altered energy levels. The authors stressed that these DNA differences are inborn, not the result of life experiences, and underscore the need to consider sex-specific genetic influences when studying depression and related health conditions.
“Females are twice as likely to suffer depression, and it can look very different from one person to another,” said senior author Brittany Mitchell of QIMR Berghofer. The findings, she added, offer genetic evidence for those differences and could inform tailored prevention and treatment strategies.
