Depression, diabetes and metabolic-nutritional factors in elderly Hispanics

To examine the relationship of depression to metabolic and nutritional risk factors in older Hispanics.

Crossectional study.

Subjects were part of a community-based, cognitive evaluation project that examined 301 subjects in the Eastern San Fernando Valley of Southern California.

Two elderly Hispanic groups: 53 clinically depressed, with memory complaints but not demented subjects, and 33 generally healthy, cognitively asymptomatic subjects.

The results of functional and nutritional questionnaires, a medical and neurological examination, 12-hour fasting clinical laboratory tests, MRI or CT scans, and neuropsychological testing.

Both groups were nearly identical along socio-demographic variables. However, the depressed group differed significantly from the general healthy group not only in percent of diabetics (38% vs.18%), but in the amount of poorly controlled diabetes, and the depressed group consumed about half the amount of fish that the generally healthy group did.

This study suggests that factors such as poorly controlled diabetes combined with low consumption of foods high in omega-3 fatty acid content such as sea fish may be associated with an increased risk of developing depression in late life. These factors may be socio-economically and culturally influenced and are therefore amenable to modification.