Depression Linked with Increased Risk of Osteoporosis
For those women who worry that they could be prone to osteoporosis, a closer look at their mental health could be an important step in prevention. A recent study suggests that there is a clear connection between depression and bone mass.
This finding is from a study conducted by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers, Prof. Raz Yirmiya, head of the Brain and Behavior Laboratory, and Prof. Itai Bab, head of the Bone Laboratory. The study also revealed that the relationship between depression and bone loss is particularly strong among young women.
The results of the study were recently reported in the journal Biological Psychiatry. Researchers assessed data from 23 research projects conducted in eight countries that compared bone density among 2,327 people suffering from depression against 21,141 individuals with no known depression.
Findings from this assessment clearly show that depressed individuals have a substantially lower bone density than non-depressed people. In addition, depression is associated with a markedly elevated activity of cells that break down bone.
Researchers also found that the association of bone loss and depression was stronger in men than women, especially in young women before the end of their monthly period. An especially strong connection was identified in women with clinical depression diagnosed by a psychiatrist, but not in community studies where women subjectively identified themselves as being depressed using self-rating questionnaires.
In the Science Daily, Profs. Yirmiya and Bab propose that "all individuals psychiatrically diagnosed with major depression are at risk for developing osteoporosis, with depressed young women showing the highest risk. These patients should be periodically evaluated for progression of bone loss and signs of osteoporosis, allowing the use of anti-osteoporotic prophylactic and therapeutic treatments".
