Metabolic syndrome components and leukocyte telomere length in patients with major depressive disorder

Abstract

Objectives

The relationship between metabolic syndrome (MetS) components and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) attrition in major depressive disorder (MDD) remains unclear.

Methods

We recruited 70 MDD patients (mean age: 44.6 years, 60.0% female) and 51 age- and sex-matched controls (mean age: 41.2 years, 68.6% female) to examine the associations of MetS components and LTL. Five MetS components—waist circumference, systolic/diastolic blood pressure, serum levels of fasting glucose, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides—were assessed. LTL was measured through quantitative polymerase chain reaction.

Results

MDD had higher prevalence of MetS (34.3 vs. 17.6%, p=.042), low HDL-C (25.7 vs. 7.8%, p=.009) and shorter LTL (-0.038 ± 0.169 vs. 0.033 ± 0.213, p=.042). Regression analysis revealed that MDD (p=.046) and age (p=.003) associated with LTL, while a significant interaction effect of group (MDD vs. controls) × HDL-C (p=.037) was observed. Post-hoc analysis showed MDD with low HDL-C had greater LTL attrition than controls without low HDL-C (p=.020). In MDD, HDL-C dysregulation negatively correlated with LTL (p=.010); but no significance after Bonferroni correction.

Conclusions

HDL-C may be involved in accelerated ageing process regarding metabolic disturbance in MDD only. The relationship merits prospective investigations with larger sample size for clarification.

Keywords:

• Ageing
• telomere
• metabolic syndrome
• depression
• HDL-C

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Chun-Wen Chen for laboratory measures and Professor Po-Lin Kuo for providing opinions.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Review Board.

Author contributions

YCH participated in study design, executed the statistical analysis, interpreting data, reviewing references, and drafting the manuscript. PYL, YL, CYL, CFH and CSC assisted with the study design and patient recruitment. YCL participated in interpreting lab data and revised the manuscript. CFH and CSC revised the manuscript, and contributed equally to this work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript and contributed to the drafting and revising of the paper.

Statement of interest

All authors declare to have no conflict of interests in relation to this study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Research Project (CMRPG8G1071, CMRPG8J1141). The funding sources had no involvement in the study design, participant recruitment, data collection, analysis and interpretation, report writing, or the decision of submission for publication.