AI Article Synopsis

  • The study investigates the relationship between dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-s) levels and the severity of major depressive disorder (MDD) among different symptom domains.
  • Levels of DHEA-s were found to increase with depressive symptoms in individuals with very-mild-to-moderate depression, but were significantly lower in those with severe depression.
  • The findings suggest that DHEA-s may play a role in the severity of MDD, particularly related to feelings of guilt and failure, indicating a potential compensatory mechanism that fails in severe cases.

Article Abstract

Objective: The pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD) is still not well understood. Conflicting results for surrogate.

Unlabelled: biomarkers in MDD have been reported, which might be a consequence of the heterogeneity of MDD patients. Therefore, we aim to investigate how the severity of depression and various symptom domains are related to the levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-s) in MDD patients.

Methods: We recruited 117 subjects from a general practice. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Depressive symptoms were divided into three subdomains according to BDI items; somatic symptoms, guilt and failure, and mood and inhibition.

Results: In subjects with very-mild-to-moderate depression, the DHEA-s level increased as BDI score did. However, the DHEA-s levels in the subjects with severe depression were significantly lower than in subjects with moderate depression (=0.003). DHEA-s level was correlated with the BDI subscore for guilt and failure in very-mild-to-moderate depression (r=0.365, =0.006).

Conclusion: The DHEA-s level appears to be indicative of MDD severity with respect to depressive symptoms, especially regarding guilt and failure. Our findings suggest that the upregulation of DHEA-s may be a part of a compensatory process in very-mild-to-moderate depression, and the failure of this compensation mechanism may underlie the development of severe depression.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5426487PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.9758/cpn.2017.15.2.163DOI Listing

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