DHEA*** Serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate and incident depression in the elderly: The Pro.V.A Study The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 12/05/2014 Veronese N, et al. – Dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) appears to have a protective effect against depression, but contrasting findings are available. Higher serum DHEAS levels were found to be significantly protective for the onset of depression irrespective of gender, while only in males this association was found also for incident severe depression. Methods: Population-based cohort longitudinal study (4.4 years of follow-up). 789 older participants without depression and cognitive impairment at the baseline were included, among 3099 screened subjects. Serum DHEAS levels were determined on blood samples; incident depression and severe depression were diagnosed by means of the geriatric depression scale (GDS) and confirmed by geriatricians skilled in psychogeriatric medicine. Results: There were no baseline differences in GDS across age- and gender-specific tertiles of serum DHEAS. Over 4.4 years of follow-up, 137 new cases of depression were recorded. Of them, 35 among males and 64 in females were cases of incident severe depression. Coxs regression analysis, adjusted for potential confounders, revealed that higher DHEAS levels were associated with reduced risk of incident depression irrespectively of gender (HR=0.30; 95%CI: 0.09-0.96; Wald χ2 = 4.09; df=1; p=0.04; females: HR=0.31; 95%CI: 0.14-0.69; Wald χ2 = 8.37; df=1; p=0.004) and of severe incident depression only in males (HR=0.25; 95%CI: 0.06-0.99; Wald χ2 = 4.05; df=1; p=0.04).
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 11:37:39 +0000