Natural Symptoms? The Intersection of Social, Biological, and Genetic Determinants of Depression in Later Life
ISBN: 978-1-78350-581-4, eISBN: 978-1-78350-568-5
Publication date: 16 July 2015
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the social, biological, and genetic determinants of depression in later life. It adds complexity to the idea that later life depression is a natural outgrowth of vascular impairment, antagonistic pleiotropy, or compromised neuroanatomical structures, arguing instead for the importance of education as a fundamental cause.
Methodology/approach
The study uses the NAS-NRC Twin Registry of World War II Veterans. The use of twins permits the exploration of gene-environment interplay. A recent survey instrument associated with the registry contains numerous indicators of health, including a measure of depression.
Findings
The results show that education has a strong negative relationship with depression among those in their 70s and early 80s. Although this relationship is partly explained by lower rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes among the well-educated, the relationship between education and many common physical illnesses is quite small. Most people of this age experience at least one chronic illness. The relationship between education and depression is explained, instead, by how education reduces impairments in activities of daily living. These impairments are not an inevitable outgrowth of declining health. The well-educated are better able to moderate the impact of poor health on daily functioning. Moreover, the well-educated are able to avoid the otherwise strong genetic risks for depression in later life. Gene × environment models show a high heritability for later life depression on average, but also reveal that this heritability declines with increasing education. Among those with a four-year college degree, the heritability of depression is very small.
Originality/value
These patterns are interpreted in light of compensatory gene × environment interactions, which emphasize the importance of especially enriched environments for overcoming genetic risk.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
This research was partly funded by NIH grant RO1 HD-046144 and a Trio Research Program grant funded by the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Security, National Institutes of Aging P30 AG012836-17, and the Eunice Shriver Kennedy National Institute of Child Health and Development Population Research Infrastructure Program R24 HD-044964. It also benefitted from a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, where the author was a visitor.
Citation
Schnittker, J. (2015), "Natural Symptoms? The Intersection of Social, Biological, and Genetic Determinants of Depression in Later Life", Genetics, Health and Society (Advances in Medical Sociology, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 187-214. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-629020150000016007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited