Could be something to that ..

Redheaded people have a higher tolerance to pain and anesthesia ..

More iron .. more iron to be bound up ..

Men have more iron .. women less ..

Therefore ..

Women or .. estrogen high men .. heal faster .. (which in some parts of
the world in the case of men would be obviously very good ) and
depression as in .. iron BEING *genetically* predisposed therefore CAN
.. be ..'appearance wise' .. BE .. genetic .. BUT .. in fact .. is only
due to the higher .. iron .. levels ..

One would simply have to study iron loading diseases 'traits' such as
hemochromatosis / Irish / Celts / Vikings and thalassemia or others and
see if THEY have higher than normal propensity TO .. mental disease ..
and just off hand .. the increased incidence to depression / drinking
IN .. Irish / Scots .. ?

Simple ..

Who loves ya.
Tom

Jesus Was A Vegetarian! http://jesuswasavegetarian.7h.com
Man Is A Herbivore!
http://pages.ivillage.com/ironjustice/manisaherbivore
DEAD PEOPLE WALKING
http://pages.ivillage.com/ironjustice/deadpeoplewalking

Well, that's a poetic expression from an actress, not a statement based
on fact.

It's very difficult to separate out the cultural factors here.  Women
may be more likely to seek treatment for depression, hence show up in
the statistics more than men do.  There's a theory that there are more
alcoholic men than women because men are more likely to self-medicate
with alcohol for depression than women are.

Depression is more than one disease, and is a symptom of a number of
other medical conditions.  Obviously, only women get post-partum
depression.  It's long been known that there is a hereditary component
to at least some forms of depression in both sexes.

A mutant gene causing bipolar disorder (manic depressive disease) has
been identified in several large family trees.  Susceptibility to major
depression is a symptom of several genetic conditions including trisomy-X.
Some recent work with a very large number of unrelated people in New
Zealand has identified a gene with an allele that causes a susceptibility
to major depression if the person is also exposed to prolonged stress
in late childhood and adolescence when the brain is still developing.

So nobody knows whether women are more likely to get depressed than men,
under identical circumstances, because the circumstances are never identical,
and reporting isn't unbiased.  But it's well established that at least
some forms of depression have a hereditary component.