The Association between Serum Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin and Depression in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

ABSTRACT

Background

Patients wtih type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) have an increased risk of depressive symptoms. Whether serum neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is associated with depressive symptoms in old patients with type 2 DM is still uncertain.

Objective

We aim to investigate whether serum NGAL levels were associated with elevated risk of depressive symptoms in patients with type 2 DM in an old population.

Methods

Blood samples from 1012 hospitalized patients were measured for serum NGAL within the first 24 hours after admission. The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale was performed to calculate depressive score. Cox analyses were used to examine the prognostic value of serum NGAL on detecting depressive symptoms during a median period of 5 years (range = 0.3–6.2 years).

Results

136 (36.6)% of all subjects have depressive symptoms during the follow-up period. Linear analysis showed that serum NGAL levels at baseline were associated with CES-D score after adjusting for clinically relevant variables in type 2 DM patients (Sβ = 0.118, 95% CI 0.106–0.171, P < .001) but not in non-DM patients (Sβ = 0.025, 95% CI, −0.047–0.083; P = .205). Cox analysis revealed that serum NGAL did have an independent prognostic value on predicting depressive symptoms (HR = 2.247, 95% CI 1.415–3.811, P-trend<0.001, Model 2) in type 2 DM patients but not in non-DM patients (HR = 1.811, 95% CI 1.209–3.292, P-trend = 0.189, Model 2) during follow-up period.

Conclusions

We found the first evidence that serum NGAL were strongly associated with depressive symptoms in patients with type 2 DM but not in non-DM patients. Further studies are needed to prove the underlying mechanism for the impact of type 2 DM on the association.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.