Study Find Links Between Inflammation, Menopause, +

Study Find Links Between Inflammation, Menopause, and
Depressive Disorder
https://neurosciencenews.com/inflammation-menopause-depression-17430/
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· December 14, 2020
Summary: Study reports a link between levels of GlycA, an inflammatory molecule in the blood,
and an increased risk of depression symptoms. Researchers also outline specific symptoms
associated with menopause and an increased likelihood of developing depression.
Source: UT Southwestern
Recently published UT Southwestern research reveals new insights about risk factors for
depression based on data from a landmark longitudinal study focused on heart disease.
One study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, shows a link between an

inflammatory molecule in the blood and a person’s likelihood of depressive symptoms. The
other study, in the journal Maturitas, indicates which symptoms of menopause are most
predictive of depression.
Both studies are based on data from the Dallas Heart Study (DHS), which since 2000 has
tracked the health of thousands of participants with the goal of improving the diagnosis,
prevention, and treatment of heart disease.
“The DHS dataset is an extraordinary resource at UT Southwestern,” says Sherwood Brown,

M.D., Ph.D., senior author of both papers and professor of psychiatry and vice chair for clinical
research at UTSW.
The first two years of the study, more than 6,000 residents of Dallas County completed a
detailed medical survey; 3,500 of them, aged 30 to 65, provided blood samples and underwent
imaging studies. The DHS put particular emphasis on recruiting a diverse group; more than
half of all participants were African American and 17 percent were Hispanic.
In the process of collecting information, data useful for studying other medical conditions was
amassed. Brown immediately saw the utility for the DHS data in his own work on depression.
Inflammation and depression
Depression is estimated to affect 4.4 percent of the world’s population, making it one of the
leading causes of disability. Researchers have struggled to understand all the molecular
changes in the body that accompany major depressive disorder. More than 20 years ago,
clinicians found that a pro-inflammatory drug used to treat some diseases could cause
depression. Since that time, researchers including Brown have wondered about the link
between inflammatory molecules and depression.
To that end, Brown and Samara Huckvale – an undergraduate at Columbia University who as a
high school student worked in Brown’s lab in 2019 through UT Southwestern’s STARS (Science
Teacher Access to Resources at Southwestern) Summer Research Program – analyzed data on
3,033 adults who had provided blood samples and completed a depression screening
questionnaire as part of the DHS. The STARS Program, begun in 1991, provides summer
research opportunities to high school students.
They discovered that levels of GlycA, an inflammatory molecule that’s not routinely tested for
in patients, correlated with the severity of depressive symptoms. Even after controlling for
factors such as sex, ethnicity, antidepressant use, education, and body mass index, GlycA levels
remained associated with depression severity.
“This study suggests that maybe we could predict or diagnose depression based on
inflammatory scores,” says Huckvale, who aspires to be a chemist. “Or maybe eventually we’ll
be able to design therapies that actually target this inflammation to treat depression.”
Brown, who holds the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Chair in Psychiatric Research and
the Aradine S. Ard Chair in Brain Science, adds that he’d like to study whether GlycA levels can
predict how well a treatment for depression works or help guide the best antidepressants for
particular patients. He’d also like to follow patients over time to gauge whether GlycA levels
rise before or after the onset of depression symptoms.
Menopause and depression
In the Maturitas paper, Brown and his colleagues used DHS data to study menopausal women,
a group known to have an increased risk of depression.
Previous studies have found a correlation between the most common symptoms of menopause
– hot flashes, night sweats, and sleep disturbances – and the onset of depression. Menopause
also causes sexual symptoms, including vaginal dryness and low libido, but few studies have
looked at the association between these symptoms and depression.
In the study, Brown and colleagues analyzed DHS data on 384 women aged 37 to 73 years old
who self-reported being in menopause. Sixty-four percent of the women were non-Hispanic
Black, 26.8 percent were non-Hispanic white, and 9.11 percent were Hispanic.
“There are very different cultural and ethnic experiences around menopause, so it was
important to us to look at a very diverse sample of women,” says Michael Xincheng Ji, co-first
author of the study and a fourth-year UTSW medical student.
As part of the Dallas Heart Study, the women reported whether they had symptoms classically
associated with menopause, which the researchers grouped into vasomotor, psychosocial,
physical, or sexual symptoms. In addition, each woman completed the Quick Inventory of
Depressive Symptomatology-Self Report survey (QIDS-SR), which gauged the presence of
depression symptoms.
Depression is estimated to affect 4.4 percent of the world’s population, making it one of the
leading causes of disability. Image is in the public domain
The prevalence of sexual symptoms of menopause was positively associated with a higher
score on the QIDS-SR. This association remained even after excluding women who were taking
antidepressants, and there was also an association between psychosocial symptoms of
menopause and the QIDS-SR score. No association was found between vasomotor or physical
symptoms and the QIDS-SR score, and ethnicity was not a strong predictor of the depression
symptoms.
“Recognizing patterns in who is most likely to develop depression is really important to help
guide our screening efforts,” says Sydney Singleterry, co-first author of the new work and a
fourth-year UTSW medical student.
“What we hope is that these findings make clinicians think about the possibility of depression
when they hear a woman reporting these symptoms,” says Brown, also a member of the Peter
O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute.
Other UTSW researchers who contributed to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry paper were
Stephanie Reyes, Alexandra Kulikova, Anand Rohatgi, and Kayla Riggs.
Funding: The work was supported, in part, by the STARS program, the National Center for
Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1TR001105), and the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular
Clinical Research Center.
Other UTSW researchers who contributed to the Maturitas study were Alexandra Kulikova,

Yaprak Harrison, and Geetha Shivakumar. The research was supported by funds from the
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (UL1TR001105).
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About this depression research news
Source: UT Southwestern
Contact: Press Office – UT Southwestern
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Closed access.

“An Association Between the Inflammatory Biomarker GlycA and Depressive Symptom
Severity” by Samara Huckvale; Stephanie Reyes, MA; Alexandra Kulikova, MS; Anand Rohatgi,
MD; Kayla A. Riggs, MD; and E. Sherwood Brown, MD, PhD. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
Closed access:
“Association of menopause symptoms with depressive symptom severity in a diverse
community-based sample” by E. Sherwood Brown et al. Maturitas
Abstract
An Association Between the Inflammatory Biomarker GlycA and Depressive Symptom

Severity
Objective: The underlying mechanisms of depression remain unclear; however, current

literature suggests a relationship between inflammation and depression. The association
between the inflammatory biomarker high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and
depression has been previously investigated, but the relationship between GlycA, a novel
spectroscopic inflammatory biomarker, and depression does not appear to have been
examined.
Methods: Data were obtained from The Dallas Heart Study (DHS, conducted between 2000 and
2002), which consisted of a large community-based sample of Dallas County residents
(N = 3,033). Depressive symptom severity was assessed with the Quick Inventory of Depressive
Symptomatology–Self-Report (QIDS-SR). It was hypothesized that the serum GlycA level would
be a statistically significant predictor of QIDS-SR scores after control for demographic
covariates. Multiple linear regression was used to assess the relationship between GlycA level
and QIDS-SR scores. The role of hs-CRP in predicting QIDS-SR scores was also explored.
Results: GlycA level was a statistically significant positive predictor of QIDS-SR score

(β = .053, P= .038) with control for sex, age, antidepressant use, ethnicity, smoking status,
drinking status, body mass index, and years of education. In a subset of adults with moderate-
to-severe depression, GlycA level was not associated with QIDS-SR scores. Additionally, hs-CRP
level was not a statistically significant predictor of QIDS-SR scores.
Conclusions: This study found a positive association between the inflammatory biomarker

GlycA, but not hs-CRP, and depressive symptom severity in a large multiethnic and multiracial
community-based sample. Thus, these results provide the first indication that GlycA may be a
potentially useful novel biomarker of depression.
Abstract
Association of menopause symptoms with depressive symptom severity in a diverse

community-based sample
Highlights
•Sexual symptoms in menopause may be predictive of depression.
•Other menopausal symptoms were not significantly associated with depression.
•Race and ethnicity were not significant predictors of depression in menopause.
Abstract
The Dallas Heart Study dataset was used to examine relationships between menopausal
symptoms and depressive symptom severity in 384 women (37–73 years old) self-reporting as
menopausal. Self-reported menopausal symptoms were grouped based on the Menopause-
specific Quality of Life Questionnaire (MENQOL). Depressive symptom severity was assessed
using the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology – Self-Report (QIDS-SR). The
relationship between menopause symptom groups, ethnicity and QIDS-SR was evaluated using
multiple linear regression. Endorsement of sexual symptoms was positively associated with
QIDS-SR score (β = .12, p = .031), suggesting that sexual dysfunction during menopause may be
a predictor of underlying depressive symptoms.
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Study Find Links Between Inﬂammation, Menopause, and

One study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, shows a link between an

“The DHS dataset is an extraordinary resource at UT Southwestern,” says Sherwood Brown,

Menopause and depression

Other UTSW researchers who contributed to the Maturitas study were Alexandra Kulikova,

Featured Neurology Open Neuroscience Articles

About this depression research news

Original Research: Closed access.

An Association Between the Inﬂammatory Biomarker GlycA and Depressive Symptom

Objective: The underlying mechanisms of depression remain unclear; however, current

Results: GlycA level was a statistically signiﬁcant positive predictor of QIDS-SR score

Conclusions: This study found a positive association between the inﬂammatory biomarker

Association of menopause symptoms with depressive symptom severity in a diverse

•Sexual symptoms in menopause may be predictive of depression.

•Other menopausal symptoms were not signiﬁcantly associated with depression.

•Race and ethnicity were not signiﬁcant predictors of depression in menopause.

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