Background
Epidemiologic and clinical studies suggest comorbidity between major depressive disorder
(MDD) and obesity. To elucidate the impact of weight on the course of depression beyond
comorbidity, we investigated psychopathology, attention, neuroendocrinology, weight
change, and treatment response in MDD patients, depending on their weight.
Methods
Four hundred eight inpatients with MDD participated in the Munich Antidepressant Response
Signature Study, designed to discover biomarkers and genotypes that are predictive
for clinical outcome. Psychopathology and anthropometric parameters were monitored
weekly in 230 patients. In subsamples, combined dexamethasone–corticotropin-releasing
hormone and attention tests were conducted at admission and discharge. One thousand
twenty-nine diagnosed matched controls served for morphometric comparisons.
Results
Patients with MDD had a significantly higher body mass index (BMI) compared with healthy
controls. Patients with high BMI (≥25) showed a significantly slower clinical response,
less improvement in neuroendocrinology and attention, and less weight gain than did
patients with normal BMI (18.5 ≤ BMI < 25) during antidepressant treatment.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that overweight and obesity characterize a subgroup of MDD patients
with unfavorable treatment outcome.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 22, 2007
Accepted:
October 2,
2006
Received in revised form:
September 29,
2006
Received:
July 6,
2006
Identification
Copyright
© 2007 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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- ErrataBiological PsychiatryVol. 62Issue 4
- PreviewIn the online version of “Overweight and Obesity Affect Treatment Response in Major Depression” by Kloiber et al. that originally became available as an article-in-press on January 22, 2007, there were some errors in Table 3. The “(d2)” was mistakenly typeset next to “Divided attention,” but should have been set next to “Selective attention” in the first column, first row. Also, in the third column, Standard deviations data were erroneously reported instead of Standard errors. The table has since been corrected, and the correct version of Table 3 now appears in the article online, as well as in this print issue of Biological Psychiatry (Biol Psychiatry 2007;62:321-326).
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