Unraveling the association between depression and telomere length using genomics

Research in the past decade provided consistent evidence for an inverse cross-sectional association between Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and telomere length, suggestive of advanced biological aging in the depressed (Wolkowitz et al., 2010). Meta-analyses with>34,000 subjects found average shorter telomere length in depressed patients versus controls, with a small to medium effect sizes (Cohen's d range  = 0.21-0.55) (Darrow et al., 2016; Ridout et al., 2016; Schutte and Malouff, 2015). The meta-analyses included data from the large observational Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) cohort, in which we previously showed shorter telomeres ~800 persons with remitted MDD and ~1100 p ersons with current MDD, as compared to ~500 healthy controls (Cohen’s d = 0.12) (Verhoeven et al., 2014).
Source: Psychoneuroendocrinology - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Source Type: research