Choose your friends wisely: their genes may affect your health, study finds
Global News
The study highlights the importance of peer influence, suggesting that your friends' genes might have a significant impact on your own mental health outcomes.
Turns out your parent’s advice about choosing high school friends wisely was spot on.
A new study has found that your friends’ genetic traits can impact your own risk of developing mental health issues and substance use disorders.
The study published Wednesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that a peer’s genetic predispositions for psychiatric and substance use disorders are linked with an individual’s own risk of developing the same disorders in young adulthood.
“Certainly, this is something that as parents, when you think, ‘Who is my kid affiliating with?’ Those concerns are very valid,” said Jessica Salvatore, lead author and associate professor of psychiatry at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in New Brunswick, N.J.
“What we’re showing here is that above and beyond our own genetic predispositions, the genetic makeup of the people we are surrounded by matters,” she told Global News.
It is known that genetic predispositions play a critical role in the etiology of common psychiatric conditions, including drug and alcohol use disorders, major depression, and anxiety disorder, the authors argue.
Previous research has shown that genetic traits can influence those around an individual, a phenomenon known as socio-genetics, where one’s genes interact with and are shaped by their social environment. Building on this, the authors aimed to understand how the genetic predispositions of high school peers impact an individual’s mental health and substance use outcomes.
To find this link, the authors partnered with Lund University in Sweden and used Swedish national data to assess peer social genetic effects for several psychiatric disorders.
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