WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (PNA/Xinhua) — British researchers said Monday they have identified the first biomarker, or a biological signpost, for major depression, a breakthrough they believe could help identify boys in particular at greatest risk of developing the illness.
The study, published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found teenage boys who show a combination of depressive symptoms and elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol are up to 14 times more likely to develop major depression than those who show neither trait.
Major, or clinical, depression is a debilitating mental health problem that will affect one in six people at some point in their lives. However, until now there have been no biomarkers for major depression. This is believed to be, in part, because both the causes and the symptoms can be so varied.
“We now have a very real way of identifying those teenage boys most likely to develop clinical depression,” Professor Ian Goodyer from the University of Cambridge, who led the study, said in a statement. “This will help us strategically target preventions and interventions at these individuals and hopefully help reduce their risk of serious episodes of depression and their consequences in adult life.”
Matthew Owens from the University of Cambridge, first author on the study, said this new biomarker suggests a more personalized approach to tackling boys at risk for depression.
“This could be a much needed way of reducing the number of people suffering from depression, and in particular stemming a risk at a time when there has been an increasing rate of suicide amongst teenage boys and young men,” Owens said.
The researchers measured levels of cortisol in saliva from 1, 858 teenagers and combined these with the teen’s self-reports about current symptoms of depression and other psychiatric disorders, which were collected for up to three years.
The subjects with elevated levels of morning cortisol and high symptoms of depression were on average seven times more likely to suffer from major depression than those with normal levels of morning cortisol and low symptoms of depression.
Further analysis revealed that boys with high cortisol levels and high depression symptoms were fourteen times more likely to develop major depression than those with normal levels, while girls with similarly elevated cortisol levels were only up to four times more likely to develop the condition.
The researchers hope that having an easily measurable biomarker, in this case, elevated cortisol plus depressive symptoms, will enable primary care services to identify boys at high risk and consider new public mental health strategies for this subgroup in the community.
“Progress in identifying biological markers for depression has been frustratingly slow, but now we finally have a biomarker for clinical depression,” said John Williams, head of neuroscience and mental health of the Wellcome Trust, which funded the study. “The approach taken by Professor Goodyer’s team may yet yield further biomarkers. It also gives tantalizing clues about the gender differences in the causes and onset of depression.” (PNA/Xinhua)