The Association Between Depression and Leptin Is Mediated by Adiposity
Psychosomatic Medicine, 05/14/2012
Clinical Article
Morris AA et al. – The association between depression and leptin seems to be mediated by increased adiposity in depressed individuals.
Methods- The authors administered the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) to 537 participants (mean [standard deviation (SD)] age = 51 [9] years; female, 61%) enrolled in the Morehouse and Emory Team up to Eliminate Health Disparities (META-Health) study.
- Leptin levels were examined as continuous log-transformed values.
- Participants with moderate to severe depression had higher leptin levels (median [interquartile range] = 19.8 ng/mL [7.8-39.1 ng/mL]) than those with mild depression (22.9 ng/mL [7.0-57.9 ng/mL]) or minimal to no depression (37.7 ng/mL [17.6-64.9 ng/mL], p = .003).
- Participants with moderate to severe depression had higher body mass index (BMI) than those with mild or minimal depression (mean [SD] = 33 [8] versus 31 [9] versus 29 [7] kg/m2, p = .001).
- After multivariate adjustment for age, sex, race, smoking status, hypertension, diabetes, blood pressure, lipids, and C-reactive protein, the BDI-II score remained a significant predictor of leptin levels (β = 0.093, p = .01).
- Further adjustment for BMI eliminated the association between the BDI-II score and leptin (β = 0.03, p = .3).
- Adjusting for waist circumference in place of BMI revealed similar findings.
