Depression intensifies from one generation to the next - Columbia study shows

20-year study at Columbia University Medical Center is first to highlight increased risk of depression across three
generations -


NEW YORK, NY, January 10, 2005 - Nearly 60 percent of children whose parents and grandparents suffered from depression have a
psychiatric disorder before they reach their early teens, according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University
Medical Center (CUMC) and the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). This is more than double the number of children
(approx. 28 percent) who develop such disorders with no family history of depression.


The study, published in the January issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, is the first to follow three generations of
high-risk families and has taken more than two decades to complete. The CUMC/NYSPI research team began studying 47 first
generation family members in 1982; then interviewed 86 of their children several times as they grew into adulthood. The team
has collected data from 161 members of the third generation, whose average age is 12.


Results found that most of the prepubescent grandchildren with a two-generation history of depression developed anxiety
disorders that developed into depression as they aged into adolescence. This trend was also found when the researchers
previously followed the children's parents through adolescence and adulthood.


"We have shown that the risk of depression is carried through several generations and that it intensifies as more generations
are affected," said the study's lead author, Myrna Weissman, Ph.D., Professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia
University Medical Center and Chief of the Department of Clinical & Genetic Epidemiology at New York State Psychiatric
Institute. "Children with a two-generation family history of depression develop anxiety disorders earlier than other children
and tend to experience more impairment." Other investigators involved included Priya Wickramaratne, Ph.D. and Virginia
Warner, MPH.


Previous studies have shown that the children of a depressed parent are at greater risk of mood and anxiety disorders, but
the Columbia study is the first to illustrate how the risk intensifies across three generations.


"Children of parents and grandparents with depression are at extremely high risk for mood and anxiety disorders even when
they're very young," Dr. Weissman says. "They should be considered for treatment if they develop anxiety disorders, or at
least monitored very closely."


Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical and clinical research, medical
education, and health care. The medical center trains future leaders in health care and includes the dedicated work of many
physicians, scientists, nurses, dentists, and other health professionals at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the School
of Dental & Oral Surgery, the School of Nursing, the Mailman School of Public Health, the biomedical departments of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. With a strong history of some of the most
important advances and discoveries in health care, its researchers are leading the development of novel therapies and
advances to address a wide range of health conditions.


Contact: Craig LeMoult

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Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons