Who Is Affected by Major Depression?
At highest risk are individuals who have already experienced an espisode of major depression, have close relatives with severe depression, or who abuse alcohol or drugs. Depression may strike any age group from young children to seniors with an average onset in the mid-twenties. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 4.4 percent of Americans (or 9.4 million) will develop major depression at some point in their life. Woman are two to three times more likely to develop depression than men. Cause of Depression Some individuals may be able to point at various life events and be certain they are the reasons for their depression. For others depression comes “out of the blue” with no apparant reason. Depression is an illness characterized by neurochemical abnormalities that can cause significant disability. The cause may be one or a combination of biological, genetic, chemical, psychological, social, developmental and environmental factors. Heredity, brain chemistery, ho
