Adopted children can face a double risk of serious mental disorder if both their biological and adoptive families are troubled, researchers have warned.
As well as highlighting the perils faced by adopted children, the findings shed new light on the impact of genes and environment on psychiatric disorder.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Johns Hopkins University, USA, reported their findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The researchers found a stark interaction between genes and the environment.
They studied the impact of an adopted child being born to a parent who was suicidal – and of growing up in a family with an adoptive parent receiving psychiatric treatment.
They found that on their own, neither seemed to have an impact on the risk of the child attempting suicide.
But when both happened together, there was a four times increased risk.
The findings come from an analysis of more than 8,000 people in Sweden.
Researcher Professor Bo Runeson, of the Karolinska Institutet, said: "We see this as a sign of hereditary-environment interaction, whereby the biological or genetic inheritance can be influenced by environmental factors in early childhood.
"Identifying and treating psychiatric disorders in parents is one possible way to prevent a predisposition for suicidal behaviour being passed down to the next generation."
Leave a Reply