Research: Insomnia Could Be a Hereditary Disease

If you have insomnia, your parents or one of your family members may have the same thing. Therefore, a recent research suggests the possibility that insomnia is a genetic disease.
The study was conducted by various agencies in the United States against more than 33 thousand US troops. The data were drawn from ethnic, European, African and Latino soldiers who were later separated to see if insomnia was caused by their ancestral line.
The results of this study prove, genes have a role in causing a person suffering from insomnia.
"The genetic link between insomnia and other psychiatric illnesses such as depression, as well as physical ailments such as type 2 diabetes, suggests a genetic diathesis in a phenotype that often arises," said Murray Stein of the University of California San Diego.

"Understanding the molecular basis of insomnia is important to help the development of new healing methods," he added.
The study found, imsomnia is associated with the appearance of a specific variant on chromosome 7.
The variant of chromosome 7 close to AUST2 is a gene associated with alcohol consumption as well as brain development and signal when sleeping.
But uniquely, the relationship between insomnia and genes is seen only in participants who are of European descent.

Although this study confirms an association between insomnia and genetics, this study still has disadvantages. One of them, most of the participants of the study were male soldiers. In addition, most of these soldiers were white.
The results of this study have been published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.