Your choice of career could indicate your risk of a variety of mental conditions, a fascinating study suggests.
Scientists examining data from over 400,000 Brits and Americans found a link between genes that raise the risk of disorders like ADHD, autism, depression and schizophrenia and their job.
They suggested these quirks could push some people down certain career paths.
Those working in arts and design were the most likely to have a genetic predisposition to mental illness in general — including anorexia, bipolar disorder disorder, autism, schizophrenia and depression.
People working with computers were more likely to be genetically predisposed to autism, and were less vulnerable to depression and ADHD.
Teachers were more likely to have signs of anorexia and ADHD, compared to the 21 other professional categories studied.
People working in social work were more likely to have genetic traits of depression and farmers, fisher and lumberjacks were more likely to have ADHD.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder was the condition most often linked to professions with increased odds among cleaners, chefs and waiters, factory workers, builders, police, those working in transport like bus drivers, and hairdressers.
This chart, taken from the study, shows how genetic predispositions for mental health problems were more likely to appear among certain professions. A red to pink shade in a box indicates predispositions were more likely, while cooler blue shades meant it was less likely. Squares with asterisks were deemed by the authors to be statistically significant.
However, the researchers said while the findings were statistically significant, the actual affect these genetic predispositions had on someone’s choice of career was rather small.
They estimated these genetic quirks accounted for only about 0.5 per cent of what might influence someone to go into a particular industry.
Instead, factors like age, sex and education were far more dominant forces.
The authors, who published their findings in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, set out to discover if genetic variations that increase the risk of disorders might present certain benefits in some careers.
Lead author of the study Georgios Voloudakis, a medic specialising in psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told the website Medical Xpress: ‘We were inspired to examine whether certain genetic variants that increase the risk of developing these disorders might also offer potential benefits in specific contexts—a “trade-off” that could help explain why these common variants persist in populations.’
The researchers also found that those with certain genetic predispositions were less likely to go into certain industries.
Evidence for this was particularly strong for people with a genetic tilt towards ADHD who were less likely to end up being architects, working in tech, business, education, law or healthcare.
Another finding of the study was that people with certain genetic predispositions were less likely to go into certain industries
Dr Voloudakis said this wasn’t necessarily a sign people had consciously avoided this career, but that people with a genetic predisposition for ADHD may have struggled in school.
‘This implies that systemic biases in education can disproportionately affect individuals with a higher genetic predisposition for ADHD, even if they never receive an actual diagnosis,’ he said.
However, he added: ‘These findings don’t mean we can predict someone’s job based on their genetics. Rather, they highlight subtle group-level trends. On average, people with a higher (predispositions) for certain traits might be slightly more likely to end up in certain jobs.’
The researchers plan to continue their research and examine other characteristics that may be explained by these genetic traits.
Having a genetic predisposition to a mental health condition like depression, ADHD or autism, which research has suggested may run in families, doesn’t guarantee a person will experience it in their lives.
While some conditions with a genetic link, like autism, are there from birth, others like severe depression are thought to only emerge through a combination of triggers such as life events.
The study looked at 421,899 people in total who came from a pool of people taking part in long-running American and British studies.
