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Close relatives of people with treatment-resistant depression are nine times more likely to develop depression that also does not respond to traditional treatment, a new study found.
For people with treatment-resistant depression, also known as TRD, standard treatments such as psychiatric therapy and antidepressants may not work well, if at all. A person can be diagnosed with TRD after two rounds of different antidepressants fail to ease their symptoms.
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The study is the first and largest to use an entire country’s data to confirm genetic transmission of TRD across families and an association with other major psychiatric disorders, said senior author Dr. Cheng-Ta Li, a professor of medicine at the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taipei, Taiwan.
Family members of people with TRD were also much more likely to develop other types of psychiatric conditions — such as anxiety, bipolar, obsessive-compulsive or major depressive disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — as well as be more likely to die by suicide, according to the study.
“This is the most convincing evidence so far that treatment resistant depression tends to run in families,” said Dr. Andrew McIntosh, professor of psychiatry at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He was not involved in the study.
While the findings imply a genetic basis, family members might also share life events or socioeconomic disadvantages or other unidentified risk factors, McIntosh said via email.
“This is especially interesting because this subgroup might have different genetic and other causes for their depression that current antidepressants don’t address as well,” he said.