Sex difference in lipid levels in first-diagnosed drug-naïve depression patients: A case-control and 12-weeks follow-up study

Abstract

Aim

Patients with depression have a high prevalence of developing dyslipidemia. In this study, we aim to investigate the difference of serum lipids, including total cholesterol (TCH), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglycerides (TG), between the depressed patients and healthy controls. Sex differences in lipids and their psychological correlations were also included.

Methods

The study included 56 healthy controls (males/females = 26/30) and 110 first-diagnosed drug-naïve outpatients (males/females = 35/75). A total of 42 patients (males/females = 14/28) were followed for 3 months.

Results

A significant difference was found in TCH and LDL-C among healthy control and patients. Interestingly, female patients with first-diagnosed, drug-naïve depression had lower atherogenic indices than male patients. After 3 months of antidepressants therapy, female patients exhibited detrimental changes in serum lipids, namely increased TG and atherogenic index. Moreover, correlation analysis showed significant correlations between changes of depression inventory (HAMD and BDI) score and serum lipids (TCH, HDL-C) in depressed patients.

Conclusion

We found that dyslipidemia was more common in female patients with depression during therapy with antidepressants. Moreover, the altered serum lipids and atherogenic index might be a hallmark of female patients. Further investigation of sex differences in lipid metabolism of depression is warranted.

Keywords:

• Antidepressant
• correlation
• sex difference
• major depressive disorder
• serum lipids

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all the participants and the investigators, who helped to obtain the written informed consent or explain the questionnaires about the conduct of this research.

Author contributions

MMT and BL designed the experiments. MMT and RY analysed and interpreted the data, and wrote the manuscript. MMT, LW, RY, SC, MC, CJW, and MJS performed the experiments and collected the data. MMT, JDC, LW, and SF amended the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81803233, 812780262, and 81501163), the Science Foundation of Xiangya Hospital for Young Scholar (No. 2017Q13), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (No. 2018JJ3834).