Polyunsaturated fatty acid composition and childhood adversity: Independent correlates of depressive symptom persistence

Abstract

Childhood experiences, personality, and polyunsaturated essential fatty acid (PUFA) composition have all been shown to affect the likelihood of depressive symptoms. Few studies have addressed relationships between these factors in their influence on the occurrence or course of depressive symptoms. The following analysis was designed to do so. Subjects, 15 to 20 years old, had either begun antidepressant treatment within the preceding month (n=88), or had never taken psychiatric medications (n=92). Baseline assessments included a structured diagnostic interview, the self-completed Multiphasic Personality Questionnaire, and a determination of plasma PUFA phospholipid composition. Depressive symptom levels were assessed at baseline and again at 4, 8 and 12 months. Omega-3 composition and general childhood trauma scores were unrelated to each other but both correlated, in predicted directions, with negative emotionality. Low omega-3 composition and history of childhood trauma were associated with persistence of depressive symptoms during follow-up, largely through their effects on negative emotionality. Negative emotionality appears to comprise a final common pathway to depressive disorder through which the diverse risk factors of childhood adversity and low omega-3 composition are expressed.

Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Supplementation Alleviate Anxiety Rather Than Depressive Symptoms Among First-Diagnosed, Drug-Naïve Major Depressive Disorder Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial

“…Peng et al found that mental disorders were associated with higher CTQ scores and lower SSRS scores ( 34 ). Childhood experiences, characters, and childhood trauma have all been shown to correlate with the occurrence of anxiety and depressive disorder ( 61 ). Moreover, childhood trauma would increase the persistence of comorbidity and chronic disease in patients with anxiety and/or depressive disorders ( 62 ) and contribute to the severity of psychopathology ( 63 , 64 ).…”

Fatty acid dysregulation in the anterior cingulate cortex of depressed suicides with a history of child abuse

“…In rats, it was demonstrated that a maternal separation paradigm induced a shift in the plasma PUFAs towards a more pro-inflammatory profile, with an increased concentration of AA in the maternally separated group [ 33 ]. In humans, previous work has investigated the relationship between plasma PUFA levels in young adults, early life trauma, and depressive symptoms, which revealed that low omega-3 FA levels and a history of trauma are both associated with persistence of depressive symptoms, but not correlated to each other [ 34 ]. However, plasma and brain FA levels do not appear to be correlated [ 35 ], emphasizing the importance of human postmortem brain tissue with well-documented histories of maltreatment for obtaining a comprehensive picture of lipid-related changes associated with early-life adversity.…”

Characterization of the effects of age and childhood maltreatment onELOVL2DNA methylation

“…ELOVL2 is responsible for the elongation of omega n-3 (anti-inflammatory; first unsaturated bond at the third carbon relative to the terminal methyl end) and omega n-6 (pro-inflammatory; first unsaturated bond at the sixth carbon) PUFAs (Bandeira-Melo, Bozza, & Weller, 2002; Bozza & Bandeira-Melo, 2005; Schmitz & Ecker, 2008) in the liver. An ELOVL2-mediated dysregulation of n-3 and n-6 PUFAs metabolism could explain the link between CM experiences and the observed higher risk for conditions related to fatty acid metabolism such as obesity (Hemmingsson, Johansson, & Reynisdottir, 2014), diabetes (Basu, McLaughlin, Misra, & Koenen, 2017; Huang et al, 2015), and cardiovascular outcomes (Basu et al, 2017), and could increase the risk for Alzheimer's disease (Snowden et al, 2017) and major depression (Coryell et al, 2017; Kiecolt-Glaser et al, 2007). Thus, the higher methylation of exon 1 ELOVL2 observed with increasing CM severity might be part of a pathway towards adult physical and psychological pathology in combination with other environmental factors.…”