Retinal vascular calibers and risk of late-life depression: The Rotterdam Study.

OBJECTIVES

To test the "vascular depression" hypothesis, the authors investigated whether smaller retinal arteriolar or larger venular calibers, which are markers of cerebral microvascular disease, were associated with incident late-life depression.

METHODS

The authors included 3,605 participants (age > or =55 years) from the population-based Rotterdam Study with no depression at baseline (1993-1995) and fundus photographs gradable for retinal vascular caliber measurements. The authors identified persons with incident depressive symptoms and syndromes using psychiatric interviews during follow-up visits and continuous monitoring. The follow-up was complete until October 2005.

RESULTS

After a mean follow-up of 9.0 years, 555 participants developed incident depression, including 312 with depressive syndrome. Neither smaller arteriolar (age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratio: 1.01; 95% confidence interval: 0.93-1.10), nor larger venular calibers (hazard ratio: 1.02; 95% confidence interval: 0.94-1.12) were associated with incident depressive syndromes.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data showed no evidence of an association between retinal vascular calibers and incident late-life depression.