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Michael J. Lyons, PhD; Seth A. Eisen, MD, MSc; Jack Goldberg, PhD; William True, PhD, MPH; Nong Lin, PhD; Joanne M. Meyer, PhD; Rosemary Toomey, PhD; Stephen V. Faraone, PhD; Mary Merla-Ramos, MA; Ming T. Tsuang, MD, PhD, DSc, FRCPsych

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55:468-472.

Background  The only large, registry-based twin study of depression using diagnostic criteria assessed by structured interview included only women. We present results from a comparable study of men.

Methods  Data were collected using a standardized telephone interview of men from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry. Both twins from 3372 pairs participated. Probandwise concordance rates and biometric modeling were used to analyze the data.

Results  The diagnosis of major depression (MD), as defined by DSM-III-R, and the subtype of severe/psychotic MD were significantly affected by genetic (h²=0.36 and 0.39, respectively) and nonshared environmental (e²=0.64 and 0.61, respectively) factors but not by family environmental factors. Dysthymia and mild and moderate MD were affected by family environmental (c²=0.27, 0.08, and 0.14, respectively) and nonshared environmental (e²=0.73, 0.92, and 0.86, respectively) factors but not by genetic factors. Early-onset (before age 30 years) and late-onset (after age 30 years) MD were significantly affected by genetic (h²=0.47 and 0.10, respectively) and nonshared environmental (e²=0.53 and 0.90, respectively) factors. Early-onset MD was significantly more heritable than late-onset MD.

Conclusions  The magnitude of genetic and environmental effects on depression in men is similar to that previously reported in women. Also similar to previous findings, more severe and earlier-onset depression may be more strongly affected by genetic factors, but differences in the reliability of reports of depression associated with severity may inflate estimates of the effect of the unique environment and deflate heritability estimates for less severe depression.

From the Harvard Institute of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Genetics (Drs Lyons, Toomey, Faraone, and Tsuang); Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (Drs Lyons, Toomey, Faraone, and Tsuang); the Department of Psychology, Boston University (Drs Lyons and Toomey); Research and Medical Services, St Louis Veterans Affairs Medical Center, St Louis, Mo (Drs Eisen, True, and Lin); the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of General Medical Sciences, Washington University (Dr Eisen); the School of Public Health, University of Illinois–Chicago (Dr Goldberg); the Veterans Administration Cooperative Studies Program Coordinating Center, Hines Veterans Administration Hospital, Hines, Ill (Drs Goldberg and Meyer); the School of Public Health, St Louis University Medical Center (Dr True); the Department of Human Genetics, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond (Dr Meyer); the Department of Psychology, Long Island University, Long Island, NY (Ms Merla-Ramos); and the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health (Dr Tsuang).