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Many estimates of how strongly traits and diseases share genetic signals may be inflated, according to a new UCLA-led study that indicates current methods for assessing genetic relationships between traits fail to account for mating patterns.

Get latest articles and stories on Health at LatestLY. Genetic correlation estimates typically assume that mating is random. But in the real world, partners tend to pair up because of many shared interests and social structures. Health News | Genetic Links Between Traits Often Overstated: Research.

Estimates of genetic correlation often presume that mating is random

Researchers saw signs that cross-trait assortative mating can explain a range of genetic correlation events, leading to overestimates of the contributions of genetic factors.

A more detailed critical evaluation of MD molecular genetic studies, which have failed to discover genes shown to cause MD.

Larger studies have revealed the weakness and wasted expense of previous research that tried to link depression to genes.

The researchers, who assessed genetic and survey data from 620,000 individuals, found that the 18 most highly-studied candidate genes for depression are actually no more associated with it than randomly chosen genes.