If you're male, over 40, and suffering from depression, your mental state may not be your only health concern. Major depression may be linked with bone loss, especially in men, suggests a study conducted by Ulrich Schweiger, M.D., and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany. Schweiger measured the bone density of 18 depressed, hospitalized men and women, and 21 depression-free patients, all over the age of 40. Two years later, the researcher compared the bone measurements of the two groups. Not only had depressed subjects lost significantly more bone than nondepressed subjects, but depressed men had retained less bone than women, despite the fact that women are typically more vulnerable to bone diseases like osteoporosis.
Schweiger believes that depression influences the body's hormone regulation, leading to changes in bone metabolism, and thus in bone strength. As he reports in an issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the study was small, and not representative of all men with depression. Still, he says, it provides "a vital link in explaining the increased mortality observed particularly in men with major depression"—not to mention further proof of the link between the health of mind and body.
