Archival ReportA Meta-Analytic Review of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Compositions in Patients with Depression
Section snippets
Literature Search
To identify eligible studies for this meta-analysis, a computerized search was performed for all publications available up to August 2009 through PubMed at the National Library of Medicine using the following key words: (depression OR depressive disorder) AND (omega-3 OR EPA or DHA OR polyunsaturated fatty acid), limited to literature in English and human studies. Reference lists from identified articles and relevant reviews were scrutinized for studies not indexed in the electronic databases.
Inclusion Criteria of Studies in the Meta-Analysis
Results
On the basis of the aforementioned search strategy, our initial search identified 1007 studies, of which only 14 were included in current meta-analysis according to the inclusion criteria (29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45) (Figure S1 in Supplement 1), which included 3318 subjects (648 depressive and 2670 control subjects). The characteristics of these articles are described in Table 1.
The primary outcomes were comparisons of PUFA levels between depressive (defined
Discussion
The main finding of this meta-analysis confirms that depression is associated with lower levels of total n-3 PUFAs and both types of n-3 PUFAs, EPA and DHA. Previous observational studies have indicated that clinical depression can be accompanied by low levels of n-3 PUFAs in RBC, plasma and, as more found recently, brain tissue (50). Our findings extend the results from several studies, but not all, that n-3 PUFAs play an important role in depression. It has been reported that the deficit of
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