People who get divorced tend to have higher genetic predispositions for psychiatric disorders, even if they never develop these conditions themselves, according to a Rutgers Health analysis of millions of marital histories in Sweden. Researchers involved in the study published in Clinical Psychological Science found divorced individuals had a higher genetic risk than people in stable marriages for conditions such as depression, anxiety and substance use disorders. This pattern held even when researchers excluded people who showed signs of having actually developed whatever disorders their genes predisposed them toward.
“We found that individuals who are genetically predisposed to psychiatric disorders and other behavioral health conditions like alcohol use disorder and drug use disorder are at increased risk of experiencing a divorce,” said lead author Jessica Salvatore, an associate professor of psychiatry with Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and director of the Genes, Environment, and Neurodevelopment in Addictions program in the Center for Psychiatric Health and Genomics at Rutgers University.
The study analyzed anonymized data from 2.8 million Swedish residents born between 1950 and 1980, tracking their marriages and divorces through 2018. The database lacked genetic test data, so researchers calculated genetic risk scores based on psychiatric diagnoses among extended family members. To read the full story.