Research reportAssociation between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and psychological health in older Chinese men in a cohort study
Introduction
Psychological health is an important dimension to healthy ageing, in addition to physical health. Conditions of particular concern are cognitive impairment/dementia, and depression, the prevalence of which increases with age (Gurland and Fogel, 1992, Jarvik et al., 1992). In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the association between blood 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) and cognitive impairment, and also between blood 25OHD and depression. Most studies have evaluated these associations in Caucasian populations (Annweiler et al., 2010, Hoogendijk et al., 2008, Llewellyn et al., 2010, Milaneschi et al., 2010) whose lifestyle differs from those of Chinese.
To our knowledge, only one study has examined the association between 25OHD and depressive symptoms in Chinese (Pan et al., 2009). In this population based cross sectional study, 3262 community residents aged 50–70 living in Beijing and Shanghai were included and depressive symptoms were defined as a Center for Epidemiological Studies of Depression Scale (CES-D) score of 16 or higher. The study showed no association between serum 25OHD and depressive symptoms. Regarding cognitive impairment, no study has been done to examine its association with serum 25OHD in Chinese.
The objective of this study was to examine the association between serum 25OHD and psychological health in Chinese older men living in Hong Kong at baseline and at the 4-year follow up.
Section snippets
Study population
The results of this paper were generated from part of the Os study in Hong Kong. The Os study was the first cohort study to examine the lifestyle and age-related diseases in Chinese elderly in Hong Kong. Two thousand Chinese community-dwelling men aged 65 years or over were recruited in a health survey between 2001 and 2003 through talks and recruitment notices in community centers for the older people and housing estates. The inclusion criteria were that all participants should be able to walk
Results
There were no significant differences in education level, smoking status, alcohol use, number of chronic diseases, number of ADLs, and DQI between men with (n = 988) and without (n = 1 012) blood measurement. Men with blood measurement were older, more likely to exercise, had lower BMI, less depressed as defined by GDS, and more likely to have cognitive impairment as defined by CSI-D (p < 0.05) (data not shown). The characteristic of subjects with and without depression, and with and without
Discussion
This study found an inverse association between serum 25OHD and depression, but no association between serum 25OHD and cognitive impairment or incident depression. The association between serum 25OHD and depression was also more pronounced in low vitamin D season as compared to high vitamin D season. There has been evidence from animal and human studies to suggest the important role of vitamin D in brain development and brain functions (Garcion et al., 2002, McCann and Ames, 2008). These
Role of funding source
Authors state that the study sponsor(s) had no involvement in design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declared no conflict of interests.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank all subjects for their participation. The present study was supported by grants from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, CUHK 4101/02M; the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust; the SH Ho Centre for Gerontology and Geriatric and the Centre for Nutritional Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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