The key to happiness really could be in the genes according to a new longitudinal study from the Netherlands, which examined people’s capacity to weather the stress of the pandemic.
The research team from the University of Groningen, led by Lude Franke, found that some individuals had a genetic tendency toward better wellbeing than others.
Published on May 12th in the open-access journal PLOS Genetics, the study took advantage of the unique conditions provided by COVID to investigate how this worldwide phenomenon interacted with a person’s genetics to impact wellbeing.
Whole communities were suddenly and simultaneously exposed to both the virus and the societal changes required to combat it.
As the pandemic wore on, the data revealed that genetic tendency had an increasingly powerful influence on how those people perceived their quality of life, potentially due to the social isolation required by strict COVID containment measures.
“Over the course of the pandemic, we observed that the genetic predisposition to life satisfaction had an increasing influence on perceived quality of life,” Mr Franke stated.
“Overall, our findings demonstrate that the relative contribution of genetic variation to complex phenotypes is dynamic rather than static – the contribution of genetics to complex traits like wellbeing can change over time.”
The findings also demonstrated that although the genetic effect on wellbeing became stronger over time, its contribution remained relatively small – as did the size of any interaction effects.
To explore the role of genetics in individual’s experiences of the pandemic, the team screened the genomes of more than 27,000 participants who had donated genetic material to the Netherland’s Lifelines biobank.
The genetic data was used to determine 17 polygenic scores (PGSs) for each participant and a seven-day moving average was calculated for the confirmed COVID cases.
Similarly, the relative change in both work and recreational mobility was established, as were the hours of sunshine per day and the average temperature over 24 hours.
The researchers then looked for connections between genetic variants and the participants’ responses to a series of 19 questionnaires about lifestyle and mental and physical health – given over 10 months, starting in March 2020.
Nearly 18,000 participants completed an average of 13 questionnaires each.
“This allowed us to explore the interaction between genetics and the impact of the COVID pandemic on individuals’ wellbeing over time,” Mr Franke explained.
“The repeated questionnaires allowed us to longitudinally track physical and mental health and lifestyle behaviours.”
The mean perceived quality of life varied over time but peaked during the summer of 2020, largely due to summer holidays and warm weather, but also because COVID-related restrictions and infections were at a minimum at that time.
“At the end of the summer, the mean perceived quality of life started to decline, but participants with a higher Life satisfaction- PGS appeared to be more resilient and reported smaller decreases in quality of life, while participants with a lower PGS reported a stronger decrease in their reported quality of life,” Mr Franke stated.
“This shows that genetic predisposition has increased in importance over the course of the pandemic.”