DBSA San Gabriel Valley Friday In-Person Meetings

7 to 9 pm. Please be there by 7 pm because the doors to the building lock. Latecomers can still be let in.

Support Groups Can Change Gene Expression Which Triggers Bipolar Disorder and Depression. Although DBSA (Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance) support groups are 94% effective in helping bipolar (manic depressive) or clinically depressed members with treatment adherence, another important benefit is the ability to create a social network with others sharing a condition friends or loved ones may not understand because they simply haven’t “been there.”

For such individuals living in isolation, the science of epigenetics has conclusively demonstrated that this can be a life-changing or life-saving experience to an extent surprising to many immunologists and psychologists. In The Social Life of Genes: Shaping Your Molecular Composition, David Dobbs writes [italics mine]:
“If you actually measure stress, using our best available instruments, it can’t hold a candle to social isolation. Social isolation is the best-established, most robust social or psychological risk factor for disease out there. Nothing can compete.”

“You can’t change your genes. But if we’re even half right about all this, you can change the way your genes behave—which is almost the same thing. By adjusting your environment you can adjust your gene activity…
“Despite these well-known effects, Cole said he was amazed when he started finding that social connectivity wrought such powerful effects on gene expression.”

What this means is that the same genetic traits that cause a bipolar or depressive condition to manifest itself can be countered by a positive and supportive social support environment to the point the same gene expression is reduced in severity and can even become manageable.

This is how, and why these groups WORK. A lack of a social support environment, and the accompanying loneliness, has some predictable outcomes…

The Lethality of Loneliness
We are social animals. We were