Shared genetic influences on depression and menopause symptoms.

Background: Women experience major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) approximately twice as often as men. Estrogen is thought to contribute to sex differences in these disorders, and reduced estrogen is also known to be a key driver of menopause symptoms such as hot flashes. Moreover, estrogen is used to treat menopause symptoms.

Gender-specific lipid profiles in patients with bipolar disorder.

Objective: High rates of dyslipidemia and insulin resistance (IR) are reported in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). We assessed gender effects upon rates of dyslipidemia/IR in outpatients with BD.

Methods: Data from 491 outpatients (ages 18-88) seen in the Stanford Bipolar Disorders clinic between 2000 and 2007 were evaluated.

Metabolic dysfunction in women with bipolar disorder: the potential influence of family history of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Objective: Overweight/obesity, insulin resistance (IR), and other types of metabolic dysfunction are common in patients with bipolar disorder (BD); however, the pathophysiological underpinnings of metabolic dysfunction in BD are not fully understood. Family history of type 2 diabetes mellitus (FamHxDM2), which has been shown to have deleterious effects on metabolic function in the general population, may play a role in the metabolic dysfunction observed in BD.

Methods: Using multivariate analysis of variance, the effects of BD illness and/or FamHxDM2 were examined relative to metabolic biomarkers in 103 women with BD and 36 healthy, age-matched control women.