(Health 24 Genetics) — First cousins who marry run twice the risk of having a child with genetic abnormalities, according to a previous Health24 article.
Now a new study suggests that children born to parents who are cousins have a significant risk for developing a mood disorder – such as depression or anxiety.
For adults whose parents are first-cousins, the risk is triple that of people whose parents are unrelated, the researchers reported. And, mood disorder risk is also significantly higher among children of second-cousins, they said.
“The size of this association is significant, and understanding why children of ‘related parents’ are at an increased risk of psychoses and common mood disorders warrants further research,” said study lead author Aideen Maguire. She is a lecturer with the Center for Public Health at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. (…)