Posted on: February 20, 2008
Depression Differences in Older Men & Women
Sex appears to have an effect on how susceptible people are to depression - and how likely they are to remain depressed
By Ben Larrison
CTW Features
A new study shows that older women are more susceptible to becoming depressed than older men, but that men are more likely to die depressed. The report by Lisa C. Barry, Ph.D., M.P.H., out of the Yale University School of Medicine was first published in the February issue of the medical journal "Archives of General Psychiatry."
Of the 754 individuals who participated - all age 70 and older - 269 people, or 35.7 percent, were depressed at some point over course of the 72-month study. According to Barry, women were about twice as likely transition from a non-depressed state to a depressed state over time. At the same time, older females were about 76 percent less likely to die while depressed than older males, this taking into account the mortality differences observed by gender.
"We essentially felt that because of the striking difference in the odds ratios among those who were depressed ... that (the finding that men are more likely to die when depressed than women) wasn't due the function that women tend to live longer than men," Barry says.
While women were found more likely to develop and maintain "clinically significant depressive symptoms," they also tend to be treated for depression medically more than men were. This is one of the factors that Barry says that she is planning to examine in a follow-up study aimed at determining the reasons for these discrepancies.
"That's kind of the next step for this study: finding out what causes this gender difference and finding out what causes depression later in life," Barry says.
