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One family relationship can be particularly damaging for daughters.
One family relationship can be particularly damaging for daughters.
Fathers who experience postnatal depression can ‘pass on’ depression to their daughters.
Approximately one in twenty fathers experience postnatal depression.
There was no link found between fathers’ postnatal depression and their sons’ depression.
It is not clear why daughters are affected, but fathers’ postnatal depression may affect family functioning, leading to conflict and maternal depression.
It could also be due to a unique link between fathers and daughters during adolescence.
The conclusions come from a study of 3,176 families in the UK.
Professor Paul Ramchandani, study co-author, said:
“…we were able to follow up the young people from birth through to the age of 18, when they were interviewed about their own experience of depression.
Those young people whose fathers had been depressed back when they were born had an increased risk of depression at age 18 years.
We were also able to look at some of the ways in which depression in fathers might have affected children.
It appears that depression in fathers is linked with an increased level of stress in the whole family, and that this might be one way in which offspring may be affected.
Whilst many children will not be affected by parental depression in this way, the findings of this study highlight the importance of providing appropriate help to fathers, as well as mothers, who may experience depression.”
Mr Mark Williams, a paternal depression campaigner, said:
“In my experience of working with families, it’s sometimes only the father who is suffering in silence but sadly very few are asked about their mental health after becoming a parent.”
The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (Gutierrez-Galve et al., 2018).
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People high in neuroticism are more likely to experience negative thoughts.In addition, being introverted is linked to spontaneously remembering more negative life events.Together, both personality traits — neuroticism and introversion — are linked to depression and anxiety.On the other hand, people with stable emotions who are more extraverted are at lower risk of depression and anxiety.Neuroticism and introversion are two of the ‘Big Five’ personality traits, which also include agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience.The study included 71 people who were given personality tests and asked to recall some personal memories.Dr Florin Dolcos, study co-author, explained:“We’re looking at traits that are associated with the way that people process the emotional world and the way that they respond to it.We wanted to look not only at how personality traits might influence what and how people remember, but also to examine how that impacts their (subsequent) emotional state.”The results showed that both men and women who were more introverted tended to recall more negative memories.Neurotic women had a tendency to repeatedly return to the same memories, the study revealed.Psychologists call this rumination.Dr Dolcos explained:
“Depressed people recollect those negative memories and as a result they feel sad.And as a result of feeling sad, the tendency is to have more negative memories recollected.It’s a kind of a vicious circle.”Neurotic men, though, recalled a higher proportion of negative memories.
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Two-thirds of Americans have this condition.
Two-thirds of Americans have this condition.
Being overweight causes depression, particularly in women.
In addition, men who are very thin — but not thin women — are also more prone to depression.
While depression has been linked to obesity, scientists have debated whether it is a result of the diseases linked to obesity, such as diabetes.
This genetic study suggests that depression is directly linked to obesity, whether or not people have other health issues.
Professor Elina Hyppönen, who led the study, said:
“We separated the psychological component of obesity from the impact of obesity-related health problems using genes associated with higher body mass index (BMI), but with lower risk of diseases like diabetes.
These genes were just as strongly associated with depression as those genes associated with higher BMI and diabetes.
This suggests that being overweight causes depression both with and without related health issues — particularly in women”
The results come from over 48,000 people with depression who were compared to a group of 290,000 people who had provided medical and genetic data.
Dealing with the psychological consequences of being overweight is linked to depression, the scientists found.
Professor Hyppönen said:
“The current global obesity epidemic is very concerning.
Alongside depression, the two are estimated to cost the global community trillions of dollars each year.
Our research shows that being overweight doesn’t just increase the risks of chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease; it can also lead to depression.”
Three-quarters of American men and around two-thirds of American women are overweight or obese.
Almost one-third of American children are overweight or obese.
The study was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Tyrrell et al., 2018).
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