Study exposes link between genetic risk of depression and heart disease in women

Women who have a high genetic risk of depression are more likely to develop heart disease, University of Queensland researchers have found.

During a study that analysed genetic and health data from more than 300,000 people, Dr Sonia Shah and Dr Clara Jiang from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience found women who had a high genetic risk of developing depression also had a high risk of developing heart disease, even in the absence of a depression diagnosis.

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

“In our study, the link between the genetic risk of depression and developing a cardiovascular disease was seen even among women who had never been diagnosed with depression or taken any psychiatric medications,” Dr Shah said.

“However, this link was not observed in men, despite an overall greater proportion of men developing heart disease.

“The variation between men and women could also not 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 Jiang said that despite heart disease being the leading cause of death for women globally, they have historically been underrepresented in cardiovascular research and clinical trials.

“This has led to a bias towards men in our knowledge and approach to cardiovascular health, and as a result, women are going under-diagnosed and under-treated,” Dr Jiang said.

Dr Shah said while the risk of heart disease increases for women after menopause, this study highlighted that women who have depression should be assessed for heart disease risk regardless of their menopausal stage.

“Our research found that the higher risk of developing coronary artery disease, where blood vessels narrow because of the build-up of plaque, was present regardless of whether the women were pre-menopausal or post-menopausal at 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 psychiatric disorders using data from large-scale genetic studies including the psychiatric genomics consortium, genetic health and biopharmaceutical company 23andMe, and UK BioBank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing anonymised genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million consenting UK participants.

Dr Shah was funded by the Heart Foundation.

The research is published in Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.

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