The depression should be treated differently according to the sex

Valerie Bidégaré

Saturday, 9 September 2017 20:16

UPDATE
Saturday, 9 September 2017 20:16

Look at this article

The depression in the man and the woman affects distinct genes and should be treated differently according to the sex, found the researchers.

This “surprising” discovery is the fruit of the work of a team of 25 researchers, including Quebec, which, for nearly four years, in New York city, conducted the post-mortem study of 48 brains male and female.

The researchers suspected that the depression should not be treated the same way in patients of different sexes because some studies have reported on differences according to sex, in relation to the presence or severity of specific symptoms related to depression, as well as in relation to the patient’s response to treatment.

“Two diseases” different

“We said that small differences could hide something bigger. Then, we focused on the genes and we discovered something bigger. We were very surprised, ” says Benoît Labonté, author of the study published in the journal Nature Medicine on August 21, and a researcher at the research Centre of CERVO of the CIUSSS of the National Capital.

“We saw several of the genes affected in the human depressed, and in the woman’s depressed, but when we compared these genes, we saw that it was completely different,” explains the expert. “It happens to depression via different paths in the man and the woman. “

He argues that the team found that only 5 to 10 % of the genes were common to both sexes. “If you look at it from the point of view of the gene expression, what are the two diseases are completely different,” says Mr. Labonté.

Personalized treatment

According to him, this is the first time that such a demonstration is made on different regions of the brain and this allows for a global characterization of the disease in the man and the woman, until then non-existent. This discovery will help scientists better understand depression in both sexes, and work to develop a personalized treatment by twenty years.

“We should treat them differently, be interested in mechanisms aimed at the man and the woman to try to target them with therapeutic interventions, drugs that target these mechanisms here,” says Labonté, who believes that this type of approach would improve the rate of successful treatment, but also reduce the side effects and the risk of relapse.