Evaluation of Endocrine Parameters as Predictor of Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract

Background: The diagnosis of the disease, major depressive disorder (MDD), entirely depends on the presence of some symptoms without any biochemical parameter to support it. Depletion of dopamine though is an established feature, is not the sole causative factor of MDD. Moreover, it has very little diagnostic value due to a short half-life. Other chemical messengers like hormones have also been found to get altered due to significant over activity of hypothalamo-pituitary axis. Literature review suggests that cortisol, thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and prolactin (PRL) are mostly altered in MDD, which can be utilized to diagnose the condition. Materials and Methods: A total of 101 patients suffering from MDD along with 106 age- and sex-matched controls were included in this study. Cortisol, TSH, and PRL were assayed in all the study participants by enzyme immunoassay. Student's t -test and linear discriminant analysis were used for statistical analysis. Results: All the three hormones were found to be significantly high in cases with MDD. When applied for classification purpose, the errors in training group were found to be 15% and 15.74% from test set. None of the normal population was wrongly diagnosed as a patient of depression. Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to evaluate multiple biochemical parameters as diagnostic marker of MDD. The study is in progress to find out a cutoff value of the responsible parameter so that they can be optimally used to diagnose a case of MDD.

Relationship between depression and sex steroid hormone among women with epilepsy

“…Elevation in PRL inhibits the pulsatile release of LH and FSH, which inhibits the production of testosterone by the gonads. Gupta et al ( 2017 ) concluded that plasma PRL was higher in individuals with MDD than in healthy controls and among women than in men, which is similar to the findings of our study. Historically, PRL levels recorded shortly after a seizure (within 20 mins) have been used to assess the etiology (epileptic or non-epileptic) of an epilepsy spell.…”

Study of thyroid profile among patients with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder in a tertiary care center

“…Both GAD as well as MDD were more associated with females compared to males in our study. Similar finding was observed in previous studies related to MDD by Charnsil et al, (4) Mahendra et al, (14) and Hazarika et al, and Gupta et al, (5) Zhicheng et al, also reported higher prevalence of MDD as well as GAD in females suggesting that female's patients need additional attention and their results showed that women who were unmarried, had low education, low per capita income and menopausal transition had significant association with more risk of GAD as well as MDD (15).…”

“…In depressive patients, 21% prevalence of thyroid dysfunction was seen (4). Patho-physiology of MDD is yet not established clearly (5). Thyroid disorder patients are prone to show depressive symptoms and depressive patients also may show thyroid abnormalities and thyroid hormone supplements have shown to improve the clinical response to antidepressant medications (6).…”

Clinical correlates and metabolic indicators of elevated fasting glucose in overweight/obese Chinese Han patients with first-episode and drug-naive major depressive disorder

“…Our study showed that TSH, TG and LDL-C were factors associated with elevated fasting glucose in overweight/obese FEDN MDD patients, with the elevated fasting glucose group being significantly higher than the normoglycemic group. The reasons and mechanisms for this phenomenon may be as follows: First, the concentration of 5-hydroxytryptamine in the brain is reduced in patients with major depression, leading to an increase in the concentration of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), which accelerates the secretion of TSH ( 28 ). Increased serum TSH can then act on TSH receptors in adipocytes to inhibit adipose triglyceride lipase, which in turn causes increased storage of triglycerides and an increase in adipocyte size, ultimately leading to overweight or obesity ( 29 ).…”