Are Women at a Higher Genetic Risk for Depression? Depression-Related Genes More Common in Women and the Future of Changing Treatments

The Guardian article published on October 7, 2025 (UK time), introduces a study led by Australia's QIMR Berghofer Institute, featured in Nature Communications. This study is the largest GWAS meta-analysis focused on gender differences in depression, including 130,000 female and 65,000 male patients. It identified 16 genome-wide significant variants in women and 8 in men. Furthermore, it was found that women exhibit stronger "polygenicity," with an estimated 13,244 "causal variants" involved in MDD for women and 7,111 for men. The study also showed a strong genetic correlation between women and BMI or metabolic syndrome, which may partially explain differences in symptoms such as weight changes and fatigue. The research acknowledges limitations, such as the sample's bias towards European ancestry. On social media, there is both hope that "biological differences should be utilized in treatment" and concerns about "genetic determinism" and "extrapolation to non-European groups." Moving forward, the implementation of diagnostics, drug development, and prevention strategies that consider gender differences will be a challenge.