Social ties turned out to be the strongest protective factor for depression

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.August 14, 2020

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified a set of modifiable factors from over 100 fields that can represent valuable goals for the prevention of adult depression. In a study published in American journal PsychiatryThe team identified social connections as the strongest protective factor in depression and found that reducing sedentary activities such as watching TV or daytime naps could help reduce the risk of depression. Suggested.

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, but to date, researchers have focused on just a handful of risks and protective factors in just one or two domains. Our study provides the most comprehensive picture to date of modifiable factors that can influence the risk of depression. “

Karmel Choi, PhD, Psychiatrist and Harvard TH Chan, Public Health Investigator, and First Author of the dissertation

To that end, researchers have taken a two-step approach. In the first phase, the world-renowned adult cohort study’s database of more than 100,000 participants from UK Biobank could be associated with risk of depression, including social interactions. We systematically scanned various modifiable elements. Media use, sleep patterns, diet, physical activity, and environmental exposure. Known as the Whole Exposure Association Scan (ExWAS), this method is similar to the genome-wide association study (GWAS) that is widely used to identify genetic risk factors for disease. In the second stage, we selected the strongest modifiable candidates from ExWAS and applied a method called Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate which factors were causally associated with depression risk. MR is a statistical technique that deals with genetic variation between people as a natural experiment to determine whether a correlation is more likely to reflect a causal relationship than just a correlation.

This two-step approach has allowed researchers at MGH to narrow the field to a small set of promising and potentially causative targets for depression. “The most prominent of these distant factors was the frequency of revealing to others, but also visits with family and friends, all of which highlight the important protective effects of social ties and social cohesion. Yes, MGH Psychiatry Principal Investigator and Lead Author of the study. “These factors are more relevant than ever when we are far from social and away from friends and family.” The protective effect of social connections is that of genetic vulnerability and early trauma. As a result, it was also found in individuals at high risk of depression.

Factors associated with the risk of depression, on the other hand, include time spent watching TV, whether the risk was due to media exposure itself or whether the time before TV was an agent. The author states that additional research is needed to determine that. Perhaps more surprisingly, the tendency for daytime naps and regular use of multivitamins appears to be associated with the risk of depression, but to determine how these contribute Needs investigation.

The MGH study evaluates a wide range of modifiable factors and uses this evidence to show an important new approach to prioritize targets for preventive interventions for depression. “Depression can cause a great deal of harm to individuals, families, and societies, but little is known about how to prevent it,” Smoller says. “We have shown that we have been able to address these important public health questions through a large database approach that was not available a few years ago. We hope that this will drive further efforts towards sustainable development. Strategies to prevent depression.” The two-step approach of this study can also be used to inform the prevention of other health conditions.