Dr Gaynor is a Senior Clinical Psychologist in the St John of God Hospital, Stillorgan. He specialises in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders and depression.
He has written widely in academic journals on the topic of CBT and is a regular contributor to the Irish media on issues of mental health. He has written a book titled “Protecting Mental Health”.
In a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the team identified the social networking series as the strongest protective factor for depression and suggested reducing sedentary activities, such as watching TV and taking naps during the day. Reduce the risk of depression.
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, but until now, researchers have focused on a few risk and protective factors, usually involving only one or two areas. And this study provides the most comprehensive description of the variables that may affect depression risk to date.
The researchers adopted a two-stage approach. The first phase uses the data of more than 100,000 participants in the British biological database, which is a world-renowned adult cohort study. The purpose is to systematically scan various variables that may be related to the risk of depression, including social interactions. , Media use, sleep, diet, exercise and environmental factors. This method is called Full Exposure Association Scan (ExWAS) and is similar to Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS), which is widely used to identify genetic risk factors for diseases.
The second stage selects the strongest modifiable candidates from ExWAS, and applies a technique called Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate which factors may be causally related to the risk of depression. MR is a statistical method that treats genetic variation between people as a natural experiment to determine whether an association may reflect causality, not just a correlation.
This two-stage approach allows MGH researchers to narrow the scope of their research to a smaller set of promising and potential causal targets for depression. The most prominent of these factors is the frequency of getting along with others and the exchange of visits with family and friends, which emphasize the important protective role of social connection and social cohesion.
In this era of social estrangement and separation from friends and family, these factors are more important than ever. Even for those who are more prone to depression due to genetic defects or early life traumas, the protective effect of social connections exists.
On the other hand, factors related to depression risk include time spent watching TV, although the authors point out that more research is needed to determine whether this risk is due to media exposure itself, or whether the time spent watching TV represents sedentary sitting. Perhaps even more surprising is that taking a nap during the day and taking a multivitamin regularly seems to be associated with depression risk, although more research is needed to determine how they work.
MGH's research has demonstrated an important new method that can be used to evaluate various modifiable factors and use this evidence to prioritize the goals of depression prevention interventions.
Depression has a huge impact on individuals, families and society, yet we still know very little about how to prevent it. New research has shown that it is now possible to use large-scale, data-based methods to solve these issues of broad public health significance, which were not even available a few years ago.
We hope that this work will inspire further efforts to develop feasible strategies to prevent depression. The two-phase approach of the study can also be used to guide the prevention of other health conditions.
In a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the team identified the social networking series as the strongest protective factor for depression and suggested reducing sedentary activities, such as watching TV and taking naps during the day. Reduce the risk of depression.
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, but until now, researchers have focused on a few risk and protective factors, usually involving only one or two areas. And this study provides the most comprehensive description of the variables that may affect depression risk to date.
The researchers adopted a two-stage approach. The first phase uses the data of more than 100,000 participants in the British biological database, which is a world-renowned adult cohort study. The purpose is to systematically scan various variables that may be related to the risk of depression, including social interactions. , Media use, sleep, diet, exercise and environmental factors. This method is called Full Exposure Association Scan (ExWAS) and is similar to Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS), which is widely used to identify genetic risk factors for diseases.
The second stage selects the strongest modifiable candidates from ExWAS, and applies a technique called Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate which factors may be causally related to the risk of depression. MR is a statistical method that treats genetic variation between people as a natural experiment to determine whether an association may reflect causality, not just a correlation.
This two-stage approach allows MGH researchers to narrow the scope of their research to a smaller set of promising and potential causal targets for depression. The most prominent of these factors is the frequency of getting along with others and the exchange of visits with family and friends, which emphasize the important protective role of social connection and social cohesion.
In this era of social estrangement and separation from friends and family, these factors are more important than ever. Even for those who are more prone to depression due to genetic defects or early life traumas, the protective effect of social connections exists.
On the other hand, factors related to depression risk include time spent watching TV, although the authors point out that more research is needed to determine whether this risk is due to media exposure itself, or whether the time spent watching TV represents sedentary sitting. Perhaps even more surprising is that taking a nap during the day and taking a multivitamin regularly seems to be associated with depression risk, although more research is needed to determine how they work.
MGH's research has demonstrated an important new method that can be used to evaluate various modifiable factors and use this evidence to prioritize the goals of depression prevention interventions.
Depression has a huge impact on individuals, families and society, yet we still know very little about how to prevent it. New research has shown that it is now possible to use large-scale, data-based methods to solve these issues of broad public health significance, which were not even available a few years ago.
We hope that this work will inspire further efforts to develop feasible strategies to prevent depression. The two-phase approach of the study can also be used to guide the prevention of other health conditions.
