Surrogate markers of visceral fat and response to anti-depressive treatment in patients with major depressive disorder: a prospective exploratory analysis.

BACKGROUND: Body mass index (BMI) and body weight have been shown to be associated to treatment outcome in patients with major depressive disorder, but this relationship is not clear. Visceral fat might be an underlying mechanism explaining this relationship.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to prospectively investigate whether visceral fat, as measured by hip-to-waist ratio and waist circumference, affects treatment outcome in patients with major depressive disorder in patients attending a hospital psychiatric care unit in Denmark.

METHODS: The study was conducted as an observational prospective study including 33 patients with major depressive disorder. Assessments were made at enrolment and after 8 weeks. Primary variables were hip-to-waist ratio and waist circumference. Outcome were remission or response of depressive symptoms measured with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D17) interviews and HAM-D6 self-rating questionnaires.

RESULTS: No differences were found in outcome between groups of patients with high vs low visceral fat in this population.

CONCLUSIONS: The lack of association was evident for all surrogate markers of visceral fat, and suggests that visceral fat has no impact on outcomes of depressive symptoms. However, study limitations might have contributed to this lack of association, especially sample size and considerable variations on multiple parameters including treatment received during the 8 weeks of follow-up.