Women with a genetic risk for depression are at increased risk of developing heart disease

Researchers at the University of Queensland have found that women with a high genetic risk for depression are more likely to have heart disease.

In a study that analyzed the genetic and health data of more than 300,000 people, Dr. Sonia Shah i Dr Clara Jiang from UQ The Institute of Molecular Biology found that women who had a high genetic risk of developing depression were also at high risk of developing heart disease, even if they had not been diagnosed with depression.

Dr. Shah said these results showed a difference in risk for women compared to men.

In our study, the association of the genetic risk of depression with the development of cardiovascular disease was observed even among women who had never been diagnosed with depression or had not taken any psychiatric medications.

However, this association was not observed in men, despite an overall higher percentage of men developing heart disease.

Differences between men and women also cannot be explained by differences in traditional risk factors such as BMI, smoking, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

Our research highlights the need to understand this relationship separately in men and women.”

Dr Sonia Shah, UQ Institute of Molecular Biology

Dr. Jiang said despite having heart disease are the leading cause of death in women worldwide and have historically been underrepresented in cardiovascular and clinical trials.

“This has led to a bias in our knowledge and approach to cardiovascular health towards men, resulting in women being underdiagnosed and undertreated,” Dr. Jiang said.

Dr. Shah said that while the risk of heart disease increases in postmenopausal women, this study highlights that women with depression should be screened for heart disease risk regardless of their stage of menopause.

“Our study found that the higher risk of developing coronary artery disease, in which blood vessels narrow due to plaque buildup, occurred regardless of whether the women were pre- or postmenopausal at the time of recruitment,” Dr. Shah said.

“Frequent heart health checks are especially important for women who have a history of depression.”

During the study, researchers developed genetic predictors of mental disorders using data from large-scale genetic studies including the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, the genetic health and biopharmaceutical company 23andMe, and the UK’s BioBank, a psychiatric genomics enterprise. a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing anonymized genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million consenting UK participants.

Dr. Shah was funded by the Heart Foundation.

The study was published in Circulation: genomic and precision medicine.