Posts tagged ‘bipolar disorder genetics’

Bipolar Disorder Genetic?

If you have a history of bipolar syndrome in your family, you are probably curious to know if the bipolar disorder genetics will be relayed to you or your child. Or perhaps you have a parent who has this, and you have yet to show symptoms, and wonder what your chances are of obtaining the genetics of bipolar disorder from your parent. The facts about bipolar disorder and genetics are that it is true that it is carried in the genes. While the exact bipolar disorder genetic cause still remains unknown, what is known is that persons with family history have a much more likely chance of inheriting the disorder.
The amount of members in your family that have the disorder normally determine the chances you will have of inheriting bipolar disorder. Having one parent that is diagnosed puts your risks of inheritance at about 5-15 percent. You can also look at it as a 85-95 percent chance that you will not inherit bipolar syndrome. In some few cases where both parents have the illness, it raises the risks to about almost 4 times. If you are not sure of your parents medical history, but you have a brother or sister that has been diagnosed, your risks are about 20 percent. The general population that have no report of bipolar in their families genetic history are reported to only have about a 1 percent risk. This illness does not affect men or women either more greatly, as it affects them equally. Most all the sufferers report that they also have at least one member in the family who also has these bipolar symptoms.

Knowing all this information does not necessarily mean you are predisposed and definitely going to carry bipolar genetic disorder. For the illness to progress, it generally needs to agitated by some known contributors, which include the environmental effects of stress, exposure or addiction to drugs, alchol addiction, exposure to infections, and over stimulation. Basically saying that bipolar is usually triggered by these effects, and can be taken control of by not being subject to these kinds of environments. There is also genetic testing for bipolar disorder being done on this subject, and some institutions are reporting that they will soon be able to do a  screening to determine if you do in fact carry the gene.

This illness usually appears during the teenage years, but has also been know not to appear until some are in their twenties. It has been know for symptoms to appear as young as five years old. After being diagnosed, it will be life-long battle because bipolar has no cure. While there is no precise distinguishing factor that will determine the genetic causes of bipolar disorder, studies have shown that it is most relative to persons who carry the gene in their family.