DNAprint Genomics (DNAG)

[stakddek]

NYTimes Story -predictor????

++++++++++++++++++++

December 17, 2004
Study Suggests Way to Predict Whom Antidepressants Help
By BENEDICT CAREY

cientists studying depression reported yesterday that they had found evidence that a common genetic variation affecting how people manage stress predicts how much benefit they get from taking antidepressants.

Psychiatrists have long known that about half the people found to be suffering from depression also show signs of elevated anxiety. Researchers have tried to explain the correlation, as well as why the same drugs can relieve both conditions.

In the new study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, doctors from Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles, treated with drugs a group of 54 Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles who were both depressed and highly anxious. (Limiting the study to one demographic group was a control tool.) They found that 60 percent of the group had a common genetic variant that helps govern the body's response to stress.

The researchers found that after being treated with antidepressants, patients with the genetic variation were far less anxious and depressed than when they began the study, said the lead author, Dr. Julio Licinio of the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the University of California.

But anxious, depressed patients who did not have the variation got much less relief from the drugs, Dr. Licinio said, adding, "This is the first time we've linked response to antidepressants to a stress-related genetic variation."

++++++++++++++

From little acorns...

Stakddek