Research Letter: Body composition in subtypes of depression – a population-based survey

Abstract

This study examined differences in detailed body composition in subjects without a depressive disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD) with or without melancholic features, or dysthymia in a large unselected population-based sample. The study data are derived from the Health 2000 survey, which comprehensively represents the Finnish population aged over 29 years. The survey consisted of a health interview, a thorough health examination with measurements, laboratory tests, a structured mental health interview and several self-report questionnaires. Weight and body composition were measured using the Inbody 3.0 segmental multi-frequency bioimpedance analyzer yielding measures of total body fat-free mass and fat percentage. The final sample consisted of 7977 individuals alive at the time of the health interview. We used logistic regression for survey data to analyze the association between different diagnoses, obesity and abdominal obesity. Subjects with dysthymia were more often abdominally obese, and had greater fat percentage and fat mass than the reference group. The reference group had greater fat-free mass than all the depressive disorder groups. Subjects with melancholic or non-melancholic depression did not differ from the population or from each other on any of the measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)