The next frontier in treating depression: cutting-edge research on how simple things like exercising, knowing your family history and talking to a therapist regularly can be as important as having access to the newest antidepressants. Researchers call it a gold rush of new thinking, and it's offering the 21 million Americans who suffer from depression (twice as many women as men) new hope. "There's still a lot for us to learn, but the latest developments are very exciting," says Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire and author of Depression in New Mothers (The Haworth Press, 2005).

There is a downside, though: Even with all the advances, experts still worry that only about a third of individuals with clinical depression actually seek help, so millions aren't getting the treatment they need. Shape reviewed these latest reports and went to leaders in the mental-health field for their assessment and their advice. The result: five key pieces of news you need to protect your emotional health.

1 Depression does run in families--maybe more than we ever knew. "Many times it takes a serious life event to kick off an episode of depression--stress, loss, death or divorce, for example--but it can also occur with no apparent trigger, and family history may be an underlying reason," says Myrna Weissman, Ph.D., professor in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. She recently led a study that followed three generations of families over 20 years--grandparents, parents and children--and found a strong family link. In addition, a study from Virginia Commonwealth University showed that heredity is responsible for 42 percent of a woman's risk for depression, compared to just 29 percent in men. Researchers suspect that certain genes respond to fluctuating levels of female hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone--a reaction that doesn't occur in men.