Vitamin D, testosterone and depression in middle-aged and elderly men: a systematic review

Abstract

Depression is one of the common psychiatric disorders during elderly. This systematic review aims to present the relationship between vitamin D deficiency, depression and testosterone serum concentration in the middle-aged and elderly men. We performed a comprehensive search in the Google Scholar, PubMed, ProQuest, Web of Science, Cochrane, Science Direct, and Scopus databases to collect any relevant published studies. The data of the articles that had been investigated the relationship between depression and 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25[OH]D) serum concentration (nine studies), or testosterone and 25[OH]D (six studies), as the primary outcomes, were included in our review. The results of the cohort and cross-sectional studies have shown that vitamin-D deficiency is associated with the incidence of depression in older men. In addition, documents have reported the positive association between vitamin D and testosterone, and previous studies have shown that testosterone can involve in the mood. We have proposed scientific mechanisms that have shown vitamin D may also play a protective role in depression through its effect on the testosterone. Therefore, it is a low risk and safe recommendation for the middle-aged and elderly men to use the vitamin D supplement or exposure to the sunlight to prevent depression.

Keywords:

• Depressive mood
• 25-hydroxy vitamin D
• andropause
• men
• aging
• systematic review

Acknowledgements

The protocol of this review, was approved by the Vice Chancellor for Research of Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shoushtar, Iran (Number: 400000029).

Author contributions

S Amini contributed to the conception and design, analysis and interpretation of data, writing and revision of the manuscript. S Jafarirad contributed to conception and design, interpretation of data, writing and critical revision of the manuscript. B Abiri contributed in the work’s conception and interpretation of data. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

There was no financial support for this work.