A research team at the University of Tampere in Finland has concluded that there is a genetic link between depression and heart disease.
The discovery could lead to new drugs for the two concerned and affected patient groups.
It is a “gene module” that contributes to the development of both depression and heart disease, according to the researchers whose results of the study were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, Newsweek reports.
The article states that 899 women and men between the ages of 34 and 49 were included in the study that led to the gene module discovery.
The researchers examined the participants’ risk factors for cardiovascular disease from childhood to adulthood.
The gene module increases the risk of depression and heart disease
On another occasion, the researchers tested young Finns for symptoms of depression through a questionnaire. The participants were then also tested for the risk of developing heart defects.
Now the data from these older studies have been analyzed further, they have looked more closely at the blood of depressed and heart diseased people and then found the current gene module that increases the risk of suffering from both depression and heart disease.
“The top three genes from this gene module are known to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases, bipolar disorder and depression. Now we have shown that they are also associated with poor cardiovascular health,” says the study’s lead author Binisha Mishrapostdoctoral researcher, according to Newsweek.
It has long been known that there were links between depression and heart disease.
The new thing is that there is a genetic link, a discovery that could pave the way for new medicines.
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