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Birth weight and the risk of depressive disorder in late life
C Thompson1, H Syddall, I Rodin
1MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit and Community Clinical Sciences Research Division, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Background:
Low birth weight is a risk factor for coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and hypertension. Depression is highly associated with these conditions.
Aims:
To examine the association between birth weight and depression in late life.
Method:
A total of 882 singleton term births in the 1920s had contemporary records of birth weight and weight at 1 year. At 68 years all completed the Geriatric Depression Scale and 867 completed the Geriatric Mental State Examination. A logistic regression was used to analyse the associations between depression, birth weight and weight at 1 year while adjusting for known risk factors.
Results:
Current social class, social class at birth, recent bereavement, social isolation and physical illness increased the risk of depression. After adjusting for these and weight at 1 year, the odds ratios for depression among men, but not women, rose incrementally with decreasing birth weight (1.0, 12.8; for continuous variable, P<0.007).
Conclusions:
Foetal undernutrition predisposes men to depression in late adult life. If replicated, these results would suggest a neurodevelopmental aetiology of depression, possibly mediated by programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.