Serum uric acid levels and the clinical characteristics of depression
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Updated: May 28, 2026

Association Between Sleep Quality and Cognitive Symptoms in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder
Published on: April 26, 2024
Shenglin Wen1, Minfeng Cheng, Houliang Wang
1Department of Psychiatry, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, 600 Tianhe Road, Guangzhou, 510630, Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China. wenshl@mail.sysu.edu.cn
Objective:
This study was designed to investigate the correlation between serum uric acid (UA) levels and the clinical characteristics of depression.
Design And Methods:
The serum UA levels were measured in 124 patients with depression, 660 patients with different types of other mental disorders (OMD) and 42 healthy subjects. Clinical characteristics of depression and OMD were also investigated.
Results:
Depressive patients (271.97 ± 77.50 μmol/L) had significantly lower UA levels than those with delirium, dementia, amnesia and other cognitive disorders (339.95 ± 141.74 μmol/L, P=0.004), substances related disorders (359.61 ± 125.02 μmol/L, P=0.022), schizophrenia (341.03 ± 106.84 μmol/L, P=0.000), schizoaffective disorder (336.78 ± 155.49 μmol/L, P=0.024), bipolar disorder (323.04 ± 108.70 μmol/L, P=0.008) and the healthy control group (315.76 ± 87.50 μmol/L, P=0.012). We also found that the UA levels of depressive patients normalised after a five week treatment with antidepressants.
Conclusion:
Our data suggested that a lowered UA level is another characteristic of depression.
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