“These patients show evidence of accelerated biological aging, and poor physical and brain health,” which are the main drivers of this association, says Breno Diniz, a UConn School of Medicine geriatric psychiatrist and author of the study, which appears in Nature Mental Health on March 22.

Diniz and colleagues from several other institutions looked at 426 people with late-in-life depression. They measured the levels of proteins associated with aging in each person’s blood. When a cell gets old, it begins to function differently, less efficiently, than a “young” cell. It often produces proteins that promote inflammation or other unhealthy conditions, and those proteins can be measured in the blood. Diniz and the other researchers compared the levels of these proteins with measures of the participants’ physical health, medical problems, brain function, and the severity of their depression.

University of Connecticut. “Depressed, and aging fast: Older adults with late-in-life-depression age biologically older than their chronological peers..” ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230322190947.htm (accessed March 25, 2023).

Journal Reference:

Johanna Seitz-Holland, Benoit H. Mulsant, Charles F. Reynolds III, Daniel M. Blumberger, Jordan F. Karp, Meryl A. Butters, Ana Paula Mendes-Silva, Erica L. Vieira, George Tseng, Eric J. Lenze, Breno S. Diniz. Major depression, physical health and molecular senescence markers abnormalities. Nature Mental Health, 2023; 1 (3): 200 DOI: 10.1038/s44220-023-00033-z