Do Health Mental Illness Problems Run in Families?

Introduction

If an individual’s relatives have (or had) a mental health illness, then this increases that person’s chances of suffering from mental illnesses. The risk of suffering from a mental health illness depends upon the proximity of that person’s relationship with a person who was (or is) diagnosed with a mental health illness. Let us study the matter in further detail.

History

In general, a person has a 1% chance of suffering from schizophrenia .If a person’s uncle or aunt has schizophrenia, then the chances that the person will suffer from the same mental health illness are two in a hundred. If a particular individual’s parents have schizophrenia, then that person stands a 13% chance of suffering from the same condition. When a person’s twin has schizophrenia, then that person has almost a 50% chance of suffering from the same condition. These statistics imply that a person has a higher susceptibility to contracting a mental health illness if the disease runs in the family. They also indicate that the susceptibility and juxtaposition of the disease (with respect to blood relation) is directly proportional.

Many research projects have been conducted to study the relationship between certain genes and a mental health illness. A study was conducted by Edinburg University in collaboration with several international scientists. The study consisted of inspecting the genes of 2000 healthy people and comparing them to the genes of 2000 people suffering from a mental illness. The study revealed that the ABCA13 gene displayed irregularities among the people who were mentally ill. However, there is no sure fire method of predicting a mental disease in a particular individual. This is demonstrated by a simple example: Let us consider two identical twins. These two individuals have the same genes. However, if one of them suffers from a mental health illness, the other one may or may not suffer from the same illness. This means that the causes of a mental health disease are not strictly limited to genetic inheritance – other factors also play a role.

Features

To understand the occurrence of a mental health disease in a particular family – let us compare mental illnesses to other illnesses like diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. Like a mental health illness, diabetes and heart problems are also said to run in families. However, the causes for diabetes or hypertension are not genetic alone. There may be a number of other causes like lack or exercise, substance abuse (smoking, drinking etc) and stress. A person with an unhealthy lifestyle is susceptible to these diseases even though they might not run in that particular person’s family. The same goes with a mental health illness – A person who is susceptible may or may not contract the disease based upon the environmental factors. Negative environmental factors like stress, a tragic incident or loneliness may trigger a mental health disease in a person if that person is already vulnerable to mental illnesses.

Comments

Most Recent Articles