Men are just as likely to suffer from depression in the course of their life as women, a new study has suggested. If accurate, the results contradict the general conclusion among doctors and everyday citizens alike that women are a full 70% more likely to become depressed than men.
The new statistics are said to be the first that take into account the symptoms of depression that are often hidden and go unnoticed, like substance abuse and uncontrollable anger. When added into the equation, there is little between the number of men and women suffering from depression.
Quite to the contrary of the current consensus, the study actually concluded that when all factors are taken into account, it could in fact be men that are more prone to depression than women.
Now published in the JAMA Psychiatry journal, the study could potentially put to rest the long-standing mystery as to why men are on average 400% more likely to commit suicide than women, despite being considered less likely to suffer from depression.
Those behind the study state that until now, the subject has been approached with something of a blinkered view – one that doesn’t take into account symptoms that are not only specific to each gender, but also hidden from sight. Any results gathered and concluded upon up until now are no more than the result of the very definitions of depression and its attached symptoms, meaning that one this is altered with a series of additional symptoms, the result shifts enormously.
Symptoms previously taken into account include familiar examples like insomnia, sadness, loss of motivation and a desire for isolation. With the new study however, this was furthered to include substances abuse, anger, aggression, hyperactivity and risk-taking.
When the data collected from 5,700 US adults was examined, it showed that the gap between the two genders was actually close to non-existent.
Doctors have since spoken out over concerns that overlooking these newly incorporated symptoms for so long could have led to hundreds of thousands of cases of misdiagnosis across the US, potentially contributing to the elevated suicide rates among men.