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2 Articles, Depression and Mental Illness
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Homosexuals, Bisexuals at risk of Suicidal Behavior

October 18, 1999

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -- Homosexual and bisexual men and women are at greater risk of suicidal ideation and overall mental health problems than their heterosexual counterparts, according to two reports published in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

"The substantially increased lifetime risk of suicidal behaviors in homosexual men is unlikely to be due solely to substance abuse or other (concurrent) psychiatric (illness)," Dr. Ming T. Tsuang and multicenter colleagues say in the first of the reports.

Tsuang, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues examined the link between sexual orientation and suicidal ideation in 103 middle-aged male-male twin pairs enrolled in the Vietnam Era Twin Registry in Hines, Illinois. In each twin pair, one member reported having had male sex partners in adulthood and the other twin did not.

Twins who had homosexual relationships were 4.4 times more likely than their heterosexual sibling to report having wanted to die at some time in their lives, 4.1 times more likely to have fantasized about suicide, and 6.5 times more likely to have attempted suicide.

Most of the findings held, even after the researchers accounted for substance abuse and depressive symptoms. Overall, homosexual subjects were more than five times more likely than their heterosexual twins to report any of the suicidal symptoms.

Separately, Dr. David M. Fergusson and colleagues, of Christchurch School of Medicine in New Zealand, report that gay, lesbian and bisexual young adults are significantly more likely than heterosexuals to experience a wide range of mental health problems.

The team reviewed data collected over 21 years in a longitudinal study of 1,007 individuals born in Christchurch in mid-1977. At age 21, the subjects were questioned about sexual orientation and sexual encounters with same-sex partners, since age 16. Twenty-eight of the study subjects were classified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Compared with heterosexual study subjects, gay, lesbian and bisexual persons were at significantly increased risk of major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and conduct disorder (a pre-psychopathic disorder). They were 5.4 times more likely to report a history of suicidal ideation and 6.2 times more likely to have attempted suicide.

In a related editorial, Dr. J. Michael Bailey, of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, points out that a number of explanations for the associations between suicide, mental health and homosexuality could be proposed, but widespread acceptance of any explanation "would be premature," he maintains.

Bailey writes that "two things are certain." The first is that more research is needed to confirm and elaborate on the findings of the two research teams. "Second," he says, "it would be a shame -- most of all for gay men and lesbians whose mental health is at stake--if sociopolitical concerns prevented researchers from conscientious consideration of any reasonable hypothesis."

Children of Depressed Parents at Risk

October 31, 1997

WESTPORT (Reuters)A follow-up study by New York researchers confirms that offspring of depressed parents are at high risk for depression and other mental health disorders, and that impairment begins in adolescence or even earlier.

Dr. Myrna M. Weissman of Columbia University, along with colleagues there and at New York State Psychiatric Institute, reinterviewed 182 offspring from 91 families who had been part of a community psychiatric survey in New Haven, Connecticut, 10 years earlier. At reinterview, the subjects were 17 to 36 years old. The interviewers were blind to the mental health status of the subjects' parents.

Compared with subjects who had two healthy parents, subjects who had one or more depressed parents had a threefold higher risk of major depressive disorder and phobias. Subjects of one or more depressed parents also had a fivefold greater risk of alcohol dependence, a higher risk of anxiety disorder, and poorer social functioning at home and at work.

The onset of major depressive disorder peaked in those aged between 15 and 20 years, while the onset of anxiety disorders peaked even earlier, between ages 5 and 10. Many subjects with mental health disorders perceived a need for treatment but had never undergone therapy.

In a report in Archives of General Psychiatry for October, Weissman's team concludes that "the current findings support initiatives aimed at early detection and possible treatment intervention in the parents of depressed offspring and the offspring of depressed parents."

The researchers also recommend that clinical outcome measures "...assess the impact of parental depression on the offspring over time," especially in the face of pressure to contain mental health care costs by limiting the duration of treatment.

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