American biologists: mutations in the seventh chromosome of DNA increase the risk of committing suicide , the results of the study are published in Biological Psychiatry.
Biologists have studied the structure of the genome of about 30 thousand people in the United States and other developed countries with suicidal tendencies. In addition, they analyzed the indicators of 520 thousand volunteers who had never had such a desire.
In the course of evaluating the data, they found a piece of DNA that affects a person's desire to commit suicide. At the same time, earlier this section of the seventh chromosome was associated with various mental disorders. Scientists were convinced that it causes sleep disturbances and the desire to smoke. Hundreds of mutations in the seventh chromosome formed a predisposition to suicide: they greatly reduced or increased the likelihood of committing suicide.
“This suggests the need to study how variations in this DNA region affect the propensity to suicide in the presence and absence of mental illness.” – said one of the authors of the study, associate professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Douglas Ruderfer.
Previously, scientists said that women, military doctors, and people with disabilities are most likely to commit suicide.