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Abstract
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Objectives: Psychological disturbances, especially depression has been linked to central adiposity, a core feature of metabolic syndrome in the literature. Metabolic syndrome and depression both increase the risk for coronary heart disease. We hypothesized that young adults with early onset depression would have higher body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than healthy controls. We questioned whether increased appetite and psychomotor retardation symptoms at childhood would lead to increased BMI later on. Furthermore, we were interested in differences related to gender. Methods: We compared N=46 subjects who had childhood onset depression and N=35 controls without psychological problems. Mean age in the two groups were 26.26 years (sd: 2.36) and 22.23 years (sd: 1.55), female:male ratios were 29:17 and 17:18, respectively. The first depressive episode was at a mean age of 11.87 years (sd: 2.05). We computed BMI and waist circumference as indices of central obesity. Results: Neither BMI nor waist circumference showed significant difference between the two groups. When separated by gender, however, females with depression had significantly larger waist line (77.85 cm vs 69.71, p=0.02). Similar difference was observed in females but not in males in BMI greater than 30 (31% vs 5.9%) and in waist circumference greater than 80 cms (27.9% vs 14.3%) both are signs of central obesity. Increased appetite and psychomotor retardation at first depressive episode correlated with BMI in females only. Conclusion: We found a strong gender effect in the association between childhood depression and increased BMI and waist circumference in young adults. It seems that increased appetite and psychomotor retardation during childhood depressive episode are connected to increased weight gain later on. Therefore, central obesity might be the link between early depression and later coronary heart disease. Further investigation of this relationship would be important.
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